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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31356-h.zip b/31356-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb12a93 --- /dev/null +++ b/31356-h.zip diff --git a/31356-h/31356-h.htm b/31356-h/31356-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b91526 --- /dev/null +++ b/31356-h/31356-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3649 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man Who Staked the Stars, by Charles Dye + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; font-size:smaller;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Who Staked the Stars, by Charles Dye + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man Who Staked the Stars + +Author: Charles Dye + +Release Date: February 22, 2010 [EBook #31356] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO STAKED THE STARS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Planet Stories July 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="587" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="400" height="645" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="400" height="643" alt="Bracing themselves, Bryce and Pierce gave the body a +combined strong shove toward Earth. Two gone." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Bracing themselves, Bryce and Pierce gave the body a +combined strong shove toward Earth. Two gone.</span> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE MAN WHO STAKED THE STARS</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>By CHARLES DYE</h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Bryce Carter could afford a smug smile. For hadn't he risen +gloriously from Thieves Row to director of famed U.T.? Was +not Earth, Moon, and all the Belt, at this very moment +awaiting his command for the grand coup? And wasn't his +cousin-from-Montehedo a star-sent help?</i></p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w1.jpg" alt="W" width="78" height="50" /></div> +<p>hat do I do for a living?" repeated the slim dark-skinned young man +in the next seat of the Earth-Moon liner. "I'm a witch doctor," he +answered with complete sincerity.</p> + +<p>"What do you do? I mean, what do they hire you for?" asked Donahue +with understandable confusion and a touch of nervousness.</p> + +<p>"I'm registered as a psychotherapist," said the dark-skinned young +man. He looked too young to be practicing a profession, barely +nineteen, but that could be merely a sign of talent, Donahue +reflected. The new teaching and testing methods graduated them young.</p> + +<p>"I know I am a witch doctor because my grandfather and his father and +his father's father were witch doctors and I learned a special +technique from my uncles who are registered therapists with medical +degrees like mine. But the technique is not the one you find in the +books, it is ... unusual. They don't say where they learned it but +it's not hard to guess." The dark youth shrugged cheerfully. "So—I'm +a witch doctor."</p> + +<p>"That's an interesting thought," said Donahue. It would be a long +three day trip to the Moon and he had expected to be bored, but this +conversation was not boring. "What do you do?" he again asked. +"Specifically." Donahue had rugged features, a dark tan and +attractively sun-bleached hair worn a little too long. He exuded a +sort of rough charm which branded him one of the class of politicians, +and he knew how to draw people out, so now he settled himself more +comfortably for an extended spell of listening. "Tell me more and join +me in a drink." He signalled the hostess and continued with the right +mixture of admiring interest and condescending scepticism. "You don't +chant spells and hire ghosts, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly." The dark innocent looking young face smiled with a +cheerful flash of white teeth. "I'll tell you what I did to a man, a +man named Bryce Carter."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p> group of men sat in a skyscraper at Cape Hatteras, with their table +running parallel to a huge floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the +clouded sky and gray waves of the Atlantic. They were the respected +directors of Union Transport, and, like most men of high position, +they had a keen sense of self-preservation and a knowledge of ways and +means that included little in the way of scruples.</p> + +<p>The chairman rapped lightly. "Gentlemen, your attention please. I have +an announcement to make."</p> + +<p>The buzz of talk at the long table stopped and the fourteen men turned +their faces. The meeting had been called a full week early, and they +expected some emergency as an explanation. "A disturbing announcement, +I am afraid. Someone is using this corporation for illegal purposes." +The chairman's voice was mild and apologetic.</p> + +<p>Bryce Carter, second from the opposite end, was brought to a shock of +tense balanced alertness. How much did he know? He gave no sign of +emotion, but reached for a cigarette to cover any change in his +breathing, fumbling perhaps more than usual.</p> + +<p>The men at the long table waited, showing a variety of bored +expressions that never had any connection with their true reactions. +The chairman was a small, inconspicuous, sandy-haired man whose +ability they respected so deeply that they had elected him the +chairman to have him where they could watch him. They knew he was not +one to mention trifles, and there was a moment of silence. "All right, +John," said one, letting out his held breath and leaning back, "I'll +bite. What kind of illegal purposes?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know much," the small man apologized, "Only that the crime +rate has risen forty percent in the average of the cities served by +UT, and in Callastro City, Callastro, and Panama City, where we just +put in a spaceport, it more than doubled."</p> + +<p>"Funny coincidence," someone grunted.</p> + +<p>"Very funny," said another. "If the police notice it, and the public +hears of it—"</p> + +<p>There was no man there who would willingly have parted with his place +at that table, no one who was unaware that in fighting his way to a +place at that table he had seized some part of control of the destiny +of the solar system.</p> + +<p>UT—Union Transport, spread the meshes of its transportation service +through almost every city of Earth and the hamlets and roads and bus +and railroad and airlines between—and even to the few far ports where +mankind had found a toehold in space. But its existence was +precariously balanced on public trust.</p> + +<p>UT's unity from city to city and country to country, its spreading +growth had saved the public much discomfort and expense of overlapping +costs and transfers and confusion, and so the public, on the advice of +economists, grudgingly allowed UT to grow ever bigger. There was a +conservative movement to put all such outsize businesses under +government ownership as had been the trend in the last generation but +the economy was mushrooming too fast for the necessary neatness, and +the public rightly would not trust politicos in any operation too +confusing for them to be watched, and preferred to leave such +businesses to private operation, accepting the danger for the profit +of efficient and penurious operation, dividends and falling costs.</p> + +<p>But all these advantages were barely enough to buy UT's life from year +to year. It had grown too big.</p> + +<p>Its directors held power to make or break any city and the prosperity +of its inhabitants by mere small shifts in shipping fees, a decision +to put in a line, or a terminal, or a crossroad. The power was +indirectly recognized in the honors and higher offices, the free +entertainment and lavish privileges available to them from any chamber +of commerce and any political representative, lobbying discreetly for +a slight bias of choice that would place an airport or spaceport in +their district rather than another.</p> + +<p>Perhaps some of the directors used their position for personal +pleasure and advantage, but power used for the sake of controlling the +direction of growth of races and nations, power for its own sake was +the game which was played at that table, its members playing the game +of control against each other and the world for high stakes of greater +control, nursing behind their untelling faces who knows what +megalomaniac dreams of dominion.</p> + +<p>Yet they used their control discreetly, serving the public welfare and +keeping the public good-will. When it was possible.</p> + +<p>As always Bryce Carter sat relaxed, lazily smiling, his expression not +changing to his thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Who knows of this besides us?" someone asked.</p> + +<p>The chairman answered mildly. "It was a company statistician in the +publicity department who noticed it. He was looking for favorable +correlations, I believe." His pale blue eyes ranged across their +faces, touching Bryce Carter's face expressionlessly in passing. "I +requested that he tell no one else until I had investigated." He added +apologetically, "Commitments for drug addiction correlate too."</p> + +<p>That was worse news. "Narcotics investigators are no fools," someone +said thoughtfully.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_n.jpg" alt="N" width="39" height="40" /></div> +<p>eiswanger, a thin orderly man near the head of the table, pressed his +fingertips together, frowning slightly. "I take it then that our +corporation is being used as a criminal means of large scale smuggling +of drugs, transport of criminals on false identification and transport +for resale of the goods resulting from their thefts. Is that correct?" +Neiswanger always liked to have things neatly listed.</p> + +<p>"I think so," said the chairman.</p> + +<p>"And you would say that the organization responsible is centered in +this corporation?"</p> + +<p>"It would seem likely, yes."</p> + +<p>The members of the board stirred uneasily, seeing a blast of +sensational headlines, investigations which would spread to their +private lives, themselves giving repetitive testimony to inquisitive +politicians in a glare of television lights while the Federated +Nations anti-cartel commission vivisected the UT giant into puny, +separate squabbling midgets.</p> + +<p>It was not an appealing prospect.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to stop it, of course," said a lean, blond man whose name +was Stout. He could be relied on to say the obvious and keep a +discussion driving to the point. "I understand we have a good +detective agency. If we put them on this with payment for speed and +silence—"</p> + +<p>"And when we know who is responsible," asked Neiswanger, "<i>Then</i> what +do we do?"</p> + +<p>There was silence as they came to another full stop in thinking. +Turning culprits over to the police was out of the question, an +admission that such crimes had happened, and could happen again. +Firing the few detected could not impress the undetected and unfired +ones enough to discourage them from their profitable criminality.</p> + +<p>"Hire some killings," said the round faced Mr. Beldman, with +simplicity.</p> + +<p>The chairman laughed. "You are joking of course, Mr. Beldman."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Mr. Beldman, and laughed barkingly, being well aware +of the permanent film record taken of all meetings. But he was not +joking. Nobody there was joking.</p> + +<p>The detective agency and the hired killers would be arranged for.</p> + +<p>Bryce Carter leaned back with the slight cynical smile on his lean +face that was his habitual expression. "Suppose the top man is high in +the company?" he suggested softly. "What then?" He did not need to +point out that the disappearance of such a man would be enough to +start a police and stock-holders investigation of the company in +itself. The implication was clear. Such a man could not be touched.</p> + +<p>"A hypnotist," suggested Raal. "Someone to make our top man back track +and clean up his own mess."</p> + +<p>"Illegal, dangerous and difficult, Mr. Raal," Irving said sourly. +"There are extremely severe penalties against any complicity in the +unsupervised use of hypnotism or hypnotic drugs, and their use against +the will of the subject is a major crime."</p> + +<p>"A circulating company psychologist would be legal," suggested the +lean blond man whose name was Stout.</p> + +<p>"We have over seventy-five of those on the company payrolls already +and I fail to see what use—"</p> + +<p>"One of the special high priced boys who iron out kinks in groups by +joining them and working with them for a while, like that Conference +Manager we had with us last year. Every member of the group that hires +one has to sign an application for treatment, and a legal release. +They are very quiet and don't broadcast what they do or who they +talked with, but they have a good record of results. The groups who +hire them report better work and easier work. We could use one as a +trouble shooter."</p> + +<p>"Are they a special organization?" someone asked. "I think I've heard +of them."</p> + +<p>"Yes, some sort of a union. I can't remember the name."</p> + +<p>"What would you expect them to do for us?" asked Irving.</p> + +<p>"I hear—" Stout said vaguely, his eyes wandering from face to face, +"that they have a special tough technique for hard case trouble +makers." For those who knew him, the vague look was a veil over some +thought which pleased him. Presumably he was thinking the thing which +had occurred to them all.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he culprit might be a member of the Board. There was a sudden +cheerful interest visible among them as they wondered who was quarry +for the "tough treatment."</p> + +<p>"I've heard of that," said Wan Lun, remembering. "It has been said +that they not only do not inform others of the fact of treatment but +frequently do not inform the man under treatment but seem to be only a +new friend until—poof." He smiled. "I think the guild name is Manoba. +The Manoba Group."</p> + +<p>Stout said, "They'll probably charge enough for the skill."</p> + +<p>Wan said, smiling, "I also heard some idle rumor that in a few such +cases discord within a group was alleviated by sudden suicide. +Presumably a psychologist can grow impatient and push a certain button +in the mind—"</p> + +<p>"Sounds like a good idea," Beldman said. "Do you think if we offered +this Manoba the right kind of money—"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that, Mister Beldman," cut in the chairman +reprovingly. "You're joking again."</p> + +<p>"We're all great jokers," said Beldman, and laughed.</p> + +<p>Everyone laughed.</p> + +<p>"I move we vote a sum for the hiring of a Manoba psychologist."</p> + +<p>"Seconded, how about five hundred thousand?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know their fees," the chairman objected cautiously.</p> + +<p>"You can turn back any surplus. We stand to lose more than that by +several orders of magnitude. Spend it at your discretion."</p> + +<p>"Make it seven hundred thousand. Give him a little more room."</p> + +<p>"I so move."</p> + +<p>"Seconded."</p> + +<p>"Carry it to a vote."</p> + +<p>They slipped their hands under the table edge before their respective +seats, and each man ran his fingers over two buttons concealed there, +before him, chose between the <i>yes</i> and the <i>no</i> button and pushed +one, the choice of his fingers unseen by the others.</p> + +<p>Two numbers lit up on the small divided panel before the chairman. He +looked at them with his mild face expressionless. "Rejected by one +vote."</p> + +<p>Unanimity was the law on Board decisions, which by a natural law was +probably the reason why no love was lost among them, but this time +irritation was curbed by interest. They sat watching each other's +expressions with glances which seemed casual. Whose was the one vote?</p> + +<p>"I move that the vote be repeated and made open," someone said.</p> + +<p>"Seconded."</p> + +<p>"All in favor of the appropriation for the psychologist raise your +left hand," the chairman requested.</p> + +<p>They complied and looked at each other. All hands were up.</p> + +<p>"Carried on the second vote," the chairman said without apparent +interest. "For my own curiosity will the gentleman who voted nay on +the secret vote the first time speak up and explain his objections, +and why he changed his mind on the open vote?"</p> + +<p>There was silence a moment—Neiswanger looking at his neat +fingernails, Bryce Carter smoking, and smiling slightly as he always +smiled, Stout leaning back casually scanning his eyes from face to +face. Beldman lit a cigar and released a cloud of blue smoke with a +contented sigh. No one spoke.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the chairman. "It is entirely likely that the +culprit is among us."</p> + +<p>"Never mind the melodrama, John." Irving tapped the table impatiently. +"We've dealt with that. Let's get on to the next business."</p> + + +<h2>II</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div> +<p>n the exit lounge at floor five Bryce Carter stopped a moment and +glanced at himself in the mirror. Thick neck, thick body—a physique +so evenly and heavily muscled that it looked fat until he moved. Atop +the thick body a lean face that he didn't like stared back at him. It +was darkly tanned, with underlying freckles that were almost black. +Years had passed since he had worked in space, but the space-tan +remained indelible. It was not a bland or pretty face.</p> + +<p>At the dinner, deep in discussion with Mr. Wan, he had been surprised +to find himself smiling at intervals, irrepressibly. He hoped it had +looked cordial, and not too much like a cat enjoying the company of +mice.</p> + +<p>They had no defense against him. The drugs organization could never be +traced to him. The connection was too well concealed. Even the +organization knew nothing about him.</p> + +<p>The only evidence which could make the connection was in his own mind. +The only witness against him was himself. He cast his mind back over +the meeting and dinner but there had been no slips past the first +shock of the chairman's announcement, and that had been unobserved by +anyone. The psychologist they had hired might perhaps get a betraying +flicker of expression from him in an interview, many well-trained +observers of human reactions could read expressions that keenly, but +the interviewing of all the Board by the psychologist was not likely. +The Directors of the Board were even now climbing into trains and +strato planes to scatter back to the far points of the earth. It would +take many days for an investigating psychologist to follow to +interview each one. He and Irving would be last on the list, for he +went to Moonbase City, and Irving to Luna City.</p> + +<p>He had weeks.</p> + +<p>He smiled, fastening bands in his cuffs that folded them tightly on +his wrists, zipping up his suitcoat and slipping on gloves. He looked +at himself again. Where he had been wearing a conservative dark silk +business suit with a short cape, he now seemed to be wearing a +tailored ski-suit with an odd cowl, or a pressure suit without boots +or helmet, which was what it was. Carrying the zipper up further would +have turned the cape to an airtight helmet bubble.</p> + +<p>Employes and executives passing in and out of the UT building gave the +clothes an approving and interested glance as they passed. The +justification by utility was obvious. It had cost money to have a +pressure suit designed light and flexible enough for comfortable wear, +but long ago he had grown irked by the repetitious business of +climbing in and out of clothes every time one stepped through a space +lock, while overcapes and hoods were needed stepping outside of any +temperate zone Earth building in winter.</p> + +<p>A pressure suit was completely independent of weather and regulated +its own internal heat. Since the suit had been designed the +manufacturer had begun to receive an increasing number of orders for +duplicates, and was now being put into mass production. Probably in +these five minutes he had just made many more sales for the +manufacturer.</p> + +<p>He was setting a style, he thought in pleased surprise, stepping out +of the building. The salt wind hit him with a blast of cold, and the +automatic thermostatic wiring in the suit countered with a wave of +warmth as he leaned into the wind and started to walk. The connection +between the Union Hotel and the building he had just left was an +arched sidewalk that curved between them, five stories above the sand +and surf.</p> + +<p>The hotel was an impressively towering building against the ragged +sky, and as he walked a gleam broke through from the hidden sunset and +spotlighted it and the low scudding clouds in a sudden glowing red. He +stopped and leaned against the balustrade to watch the red gleams +reflecting from the bay. Red and purple clouds fled by low overhead, +their colors changing as they moved. This was something a man couldn't +see in space or on the moon.</p> + +<p>But after a moment he couldn't fully enjoy it, because he was being +watched. The feeling was disturbing.</p> + +<p>Damn rubbernecks, he thought, and turned irritably, half hoping that +at least it would be an acquaintance or some pretty girls.</p> + +<p>But there was no one watching him.</p> + +<p>A few pedestrians walked by hurriedly because it was growing dark and +the view that they had come to enjoy was fading. The wind wrapped +their enveloping capes around them and made them all look abnormally +tall and columnar.</p> + +<p>It was darker. The sidewalk lights abruptly flicked on in a flood of +amber light that thickened the twilight beyond their circle to an +opaque purple curtain of darkness.</p> + +<p>He noticed a pedestrian walking slowly towards him from the direction +he had come. The figure approached more slowly than seemed natural, +with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets as though lost in +thought.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p> trailer from the detective agency? It was too soon for that. If it +were arranged that every member of the Board be trailed, still it +could not have been arranged and begun so soon.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/image_003.jpg" width="300" height="304" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Besides, there was something more deadly than that in the walking +man's indifference.</p> + +<p>A killer arranged by Beldman? It would be natural for Beldman or Stout +to take a chance and fight back the direct way. But there was no +evidence. How could either of them have decided who to blame or who to +fight?</p> + +<p>The few huge buildings that stood dark against the night sky were +being brightened now by lights going on in hundreds of windows. In +long slender spans between them stretched the aerial walks and the +necklaces of amber lights that outlined them. The wind blew colder +across the walks and the view of sea and sky that had been visible +from them now was blotted out by night. The walkers were going in. +There was small chance of sheltering himself in a crowd, or even of +keeping only one or two walkers between himself and the one who +followed him.</p> + +<p>At the first sight of the approaching figure he had instinctively +leaned back against the concrete railing and taken his gun from its +pocket holster, holding it lightly in his gloved hand.</p> + +<p>An aged couple and a vigorous middle-aged woman hurrying in the +opposite direction glanced at him without interest or alarm. His pose +was not menacing, and anyway most men with money enough to travel +carried hand arms.</p> + +<p>This was an indirect effect of a Federated Nations ruling that only +hand arms of a regulated deadliness be manufactured as the armament +of nations. The ruling had been carefully considered for other +secondary effects, for any nation growing over-centralized and +militaristic was likely to arm its citizens universally for greater +military power by numbers, and then suffer the natural consequences of +having armed their public opinion.</p> + +<p>An armed man need not vote to be counted, and once having learned that +lesson, the feeling that an armed man carried his bill of rights in +his pocket made this the first clause of the written and unwritten +constitutions of many suddenly democratic nations. "The right of the +yoemanry to carry arms shall not be abridged." They kept their guns.</p> + +<p>And with weapons instantly available to hot tempers, dueling came back +into custom in most places.</p> + +<p>All this had little effect on the large calm manufacturing countries +who had run the UN and now ran the FN, but it made easy their decision +that since, in space, policing is almost impossible, the citizens who +venture there must be armed to protect themselves. Thus, in spite of +the continued outcry of a minority of Christian moralists, a holster +pocket was now built into all space suits.</p> + +<p>Bryce had grown up in a famine country, an almost unpoliced area, and +weapons had been as familiar to his hands as fingers since he had +passed twelve. And when, as a steel-worker, he had been one of the +first settlers in the foundry towns of the Asteroid Belt, he had found +life no gentler there. But it was all right as far as he was +concerned. He had heard of safer and duller ways to live but had never +wanted them. Life as a moonbased transport manager had been a short +interval of nonviolence, five years of startling calm which he had not +yet grown accustomed to.</p> + +<p>The gun fitted into his hand as comfortably as his thumb, or as the +handshake of an old and trusted friend, but it was useless here. +Reluctantly he slipped it back into his pocket and began walking +again. A director of UT couldn't shoot people on intuition.</p> + +<p>He had barely stopped for a count of ten, and there was still distance +between them when he had turned, but the follower could be walking +faster now, narrowing the distance between them.</p> + +<p>If he had waited and fired, an inspection of the man's pockets could +have confirmed his judgment by the finding of an assassin's illegal +needle gun. That alone might be enough to satisfy the police if he +were still merely a spaceworker, but a Director of UT couldn't live +that casually. It would be difficult to explain his certainty to the +police, and still more difficult to explain to the newspapers. He +could not afford that sort of publicity.</p> + +<p>Bryce let out a soft curse and lengthened his stride.</p> + +<p>He had to wait for proof of the follower's intentions. And the only +proof would be to be attacked, and the first proof of that, since +needle guns are soundless and inconspicuous, would probably be a +curare-loaded needle in his back.</p> + +<p>After that the follower could inconspicuously drop his weapon over the +balustrade, its self-destroying mechanism set to melt it before it +reached the sands far below.</p> + +<p>However since the follower certainly would not openly run after him, +the most logical thing to do, Bryce decided, was to run to the hotel +as if he were in a hurry. The idea irritated him.</p> + +<p>He walked on, slowing perversely. It was irrational to walk, and he +knew it, but he walked, and the knowledge that it was irrational +irritated him further. The skin between his shoulder blades itched +meditatively in its own imaginative anticipation of an entering +needle. What good did it do him to be proud of his brains when he put +himself in a spot where he walked around like a target?</p> + +<p>He controlled a rising rage but he walked.</p> + +<p>The sky was totally dark now and there were only two or three couples +ahead on the slender concrete span and one old couple he had just +passed, so that they were between himself and the follower. But that +was no adequate screen.</p> + +<p>Far above soared the sky taxis. And now he wanted a taxi. He was +approaching a place where there was a hack stand. Just ahead, at the +midway point, where the upward curve of the sidewalk leveled off and +began to curve down, a narrow catwalk jutted into space with a small +landing platform at its end. "TAXI" a luminescent arrow glowed at him +directingly as he came abreast of it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="34" height="40" /></div> +<p>e walked rapidly out along the railed catwalk, making a perfect +target he knew, silhouetted against the glow. He cursed under his +breath, reaching the end of it. Here he made an even more perfect +target, with the single bright light that poured down brilliance on +the bench and landing platform spotlighting him against the darkness +of the night. The bench was thin iron grillwork. It offered no cover.</p> + +<p>He needed cover. He considered the white concrete pillar of the lamp, +put his hand on the railing and jumped up to sit on the railing +casually, a one hundred fifty foot fall behind him and the width of +the lamp post between him and the follower, who now was an unmoving +figure leaning against the railing of the sidewalk near where the +catwalk began.</p> + +<p>The sight of the insolently lounging figure did nothing to sooth his +irritation. This escape was not the way he wanted to deal with a +threat. There was an oddity in the man's waiting. The range was poor, +and he probably was not firing, although he would look as if he were +not in any case, but if he were not going to take this chance for his +murder attempt, why did he openly exhibit himself, arousing suspicion +and cutting off future chances? An innocent stroller or even a mere +trailer from the detective agency would have strolled on.</p> + +<p>Above came the nearing drone of a taxi which had spotted him in the +bright pool of light at the hack stand.</p> + +<p>There was something in the careless confidence of the follower's open +interest in him that raised his neck hair as no direct threat could +have, and filled the rumble of the night-hidden surf with obscure +menace. The man acted as if his job was over, clinched.</p> + +<p>Bryce reached the answer as the taxi floated down on hissing roter +blades and settled to the platform. Sliding down from the railing he +walked toward it, stiff-legged. The light was out inside it, and the +cabby did not climb out or attempt to open the door for him. Bryce +turned his head and looked back as if for a last glance at the +watching figure, grasping the door handle with his right hand as if +fumbling blindly. He was left handed. When the door was open a crack, +it stopped opening, and those inside saw the muzzle of a magnamatic in +his left hand looking through the crack at them.</p> + +<p>It's easier to catch wolves if you're disguised as a rabbit, Pop Yak +had told him once. He must have looked a complete sucker, starting to +climb into a dark cab with his head turned backward!</p> + +<p>"Don't move," Bryce said, some of his anger reaching his voice in a +biting rasp. Inside, the driver was frozen with his head turned enough +to see the glint of a muzzle behind his neck, and in the darkened far +corner of the back seat where there should have been no one there was +the pale blur of a face, and a hand holding something. Bryce knew that +there was no way a shot could reach him except through the shielding +steel door or the shatterproof window, and a man would hesitate before +shooting through glass when he was looking down the throat of Bryce's +gun. Bryce waited for him to think it over.</p> + +<p>The hand of the man in the back seat came into focus as his eyes +adjusted to the dark inside, and he could see that it was holding a +gun. The gun was not pointing at anything in particular. It was frozen +in mid-motion. The man had a half-smile frozen on his face, probably +in the way he had been smiling just before Bryce spoke.</p> + +<p>"Open your hand. Drop it." The glint of the gun disappeared, and there +was a faint thud from the floor. Bryce opened the door and slid into +the rear seat, watchful for motion, ready to shoot. "Face front!" They +faced front like two puppets, perhaps the uncontrollable rasp in his +voice was convincing. He still did not know whose men they were, or +why they had been hired. It would be no use questioning them for they +would not know either. He could guess who it was, a name came to mind, +but there was no way of checking up. This kind of business did not fit +well with the crucial balance of his plans for the next two weeks. "Be +careful," he said perhaps unnecessarily, "I'm nervous. Union Hotel +please."</p> + +<p>The short ride to the hotel was made in dead silence, with the man in +the opposite corner barely moving enough to blink his eyes. He was +middle-aged, with the resigned sagging lines to his face of ambition +disappointed, but he sat with a waiting stillness that Bryce +recognized as something to watch. There was probably another gun +within quick reach of that passive right hand.</p> + +<p>The roter drifted down to a landing space on the floodlighted landing +roof of the hotel and settled with a slight bump. "Don't move." The +clumsy careful business of opening the door backward with his right +hand and sliding out without taking his eyes from either of them was +tediously slow.</p> + +<p>Once out, he slammed the door briskly. "Take off." Not until the red +and green lights had faded into the distance did he turn away, pocket +his gun and walk into the wide doorway to the elevators. As he brushed +past the hotel detective standing in the doorway the detective was +reholstering a large size police pacifier. Apparently he had been +ready to impartially stun everyone concerned at the first sign of +trouble, which probably explained why those in the aircab had not +attempted any retaliation. The detective gave Bryce a cold stare as he +went by, probably in disapproval of guests waving weapons on hotel +premises.</p> + + +<h2>III</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div> +<p>n his luxurious hotel room Bryce checked his watch. Eight o'clock. A +telephone call was scheduled for some time in the half hour. He filed +the question of who was behind the night's attack and picked up the +phone. The dial system was in automatic contact with any city in the +world. He dialed.</p> + +<p>Somewhere in a city, a phone rang. It rang unheard, for it was locked +into a safe in a tiny rented office with some unusual mechanisms +attached. The ringing was stopped abruptly and a recorded voice +answered, "Yeah?"</p> + +<p>Bryce took a dial phone from the night table where it had been sitting +innocently like a toy he had bought for some child. "Hi Al," he said +cheerfully to the automatic mechanism at the other end. "Listen, I +think I've got a new phrase for that transition theme. How's this?" He +put the receiver against the back of the toy and dialed the toy dial. +It responded to each letter and number with a ringing note of +different pitch that played a short unmelodious tune.</p> + +<p>The pitch notes went over the line and entered the mechanism, making +the contacts within it that dialed the number he had dialed on the toy +phone.</p> + +<p>"How's that?" Bryce said cheerfully.</p> + +<p>The recorded voice said, "Sounds good. I'll see what I can do with +it." Somewhere far away and unheard another phone had begun to ring. +"Want to speak to George?"</p> + +<p>"Sure."</p> + +<p>A phone rang in a pay booth somewhere in a great city railroad +station, and someone browsing at a magazine stand or sitting on a +suitcase apparently waiting for a train strolled casually to answer +it.</p> + +<p>"Hello?" said a noncommittal voice, prepared to claim that he was +merely a stranger answering the phone because it was ringing in +public.</p> + +<p>"Hello George, how's everything going?" Bryce asked. Those words were +his trade mark, the passwords that identified him to everyone as the +Voice who gave Tips. Among the monster organization which had grown +from the proven reliability of those tips, the voice was known as +"Hello George." Hello George's tips were always good, so they had come +to be followed as blindly as tips from God, even when they were not +understood. Certainty was one thing men in the fencing and drug +smuggling business most sorely lacked.</p> + +<p>They communicated only by phone. They transmitted their wares by +leaving them in public lockers and mailing the key. They never saw +each other's faces or heard each other's names, but even the use of a +key could be a trap that would bring a circle of narcotics agents of +INC around the unfortunate who attempted to open the locker.</p> + +<p>Far away over the bulge of the Earth between, a man sat in a phone +booth waiting for his tip. "Pretty well. No complaints. How's with +you, any news?"</p> + +<p>"I think you'd better cut connections with Union Transport. They're +getting pretty sloppy. I think they might spill something."</p> + +<p>"Wadja say?" asked the man at the other end cautiously, "I didn't get +you."</p> + +<p>"Better stop using UT for shipping," Bryce repeated, wording his +sentence carefully. "They aren't careful enough anymore. You don't +want them to break an inc case wide open, do you?" INC was the +International Narcotics Control agency of the F. N. But the +conversation would have sounded like an innocent discussion of +shipping difficulties to any chance listener on the telephone lines.</p> + +<p>The flat tones were plaintive and aggrieved. "But we're expecting a +load of stuff Friday. Our buyers are expecting it." Stuff was drug, +and expecting was a mild word for the need of drug addicts! "And we've +got a lotta loads of miscellaneous items to go out." The contact was a +small man in the organization but he evidently knew just how "hot" +fenced goods could be. "That can't wait!"</p> + +<p>He had planned this. "Maybe they are all right for shipments this +week. I'll chew them out to be careful, check up and call back Friday. +Meanwhile break with them."</p> + +<p>"Tell them a few things from me, the—" the distant voice added a +surprising string of derogatory adjectives. "Friday when?"</p> + +<p>"Friday about—about six." The double "about" confirmed the signal for +a telephone appointment that was general for all contact numbers.</p> + +<p>"Friday about six, Okay." There was a faint click that meant he had +hung up and the phone in the safe was open for more dialings on his +toy dial.</p> + +<p>Bryce hung up, leaned back on his bed and pushed a button that turned +on the radio to a semiclassical program. Soothing music came into the +room and slow waves of colored light moved across the ceiling. He +tuned to a book player, and chose a heavy economics study from the +current seller list of titles which appeared on the ceiling. The daily +moon ship was scheduled to blast off at five thirty, its optimum at +this week's position of the Moon. By this time tomorrow night, he and +all the other members of the Board would be out of reach of any easy +observation or analysis by their hired psychological mind-hunter.</p> + +<p>With a slight chilling of the skin he remembered the cop-psychos the +gangs had warned him about in his scrambling and desperate childhood, +and what they were supposed to do to you when they caught you in a +third offense.</p> + +<p>He had been born into an ex-European quarter in a Chinese city, a +descendant of something prideful and forgotten called an Empire +Builder, and grew with the mixed gangs of children of all colors who +roamed the back streets at night, looting and stealing and breaking. +Population control was almost impossible in a land where the only +social security against starvation in old age was sons, and social +security was impossible in a land so corrupted by the desperation of +famines, so little able to spare the necessary taxes. The nation was +too huge to be fed from outside, and so had been left by the FN to +stew in its own misery until its people solved their basic problem.</p> + +<p>So, in an enlightened clean and wealthy world, Bryce Carter had grown +up in a slum whose swarming viciousness was a matter of take, steal, +kill, climb or die. Perhaps under those special circumstances police +penal compulsion had to be brutally strong, stronger than the drive +for life itself, as brutal as the lurid tales he had heard. Perhaps in +other countries the methods were different, a hypno-converted man not +a horror to his friends, but he had had no time to study and +investigate if it were so, and the horror and hatred remained.</p> + +<p>But there was no need to think about the psycho-hunter the Board had +put on him for by the time the hunter could reach him UT would have +fallen as a legal entity, its corruption would be completely public, +and the psychologist would be called off before discovering anything. +Bryce thought of the slight nervousness he had let show at the first +words of the chairman's announcement. The only witness against him was +himself. His control wasn't perfect. No one's was. But he was safe.</p> + +<p>He concentrated on the opening pages of the Basic Principles of +Economies.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div> +<p>n the darkened UT building which could be seen from his window a few +lights still burned where the night shift dealt with emergencies.</p> + +<p>In a small projection room on the fifty-fifth floor a man sat and +looked at a film of the UT Board meeting of that day. He played only a +certain small twenty minute interval, listening closely to the +voices—"Gentlemen, your attention please—" Watching the faces—"Do +the police know of this?" ... "Do you think if we offered this Manoba +the right kind of money...." "Will the gentleman who voted nay on the +secret vote the first time speak up and explain...." "It is entirely +likely that the conspirator is among us." On the screen showed the +apparently bored faces and relaxed poses of men accustomed to the +power game, habitually masking their feelings from each other, +shifting their positions slightly sometimes, some smoking. "We've +dealt with that, let's get on to the next business."</p> + +<p>The watcher stopped the film and silently reset it. It began again +with the chairman on the screen rapping the table lightly. "Gentlemen, +your attention...."</p> + +<p>In the darkened projection room the chairman sat to one side smoking +and thinking while the psychologist played the film through for the +fourth time.</p> + +<p>The chairman was wondering just how seriously the watcher was taking +Mr. Beldman's proposals about what he should do to the culprit, and +whether he would raise his fee.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he telephone rang.</p> + +<p>"Four thirty, Mr. Carter," said the voice of the night clerk in the +receiver.</p> + +<p>It was time to catch the five thirty Moon ship. He splashed cold water +on his face and the back of his neck until he was awake, took a hot +shower, dressed rapidly, and gave up his key at the desk at 4:45.</p> + +<p>"A letter for you, Mister Carter," she smiled, handing it to him. From +the wall speakers a mild but penetrating voice began repeating, "Bus +line for spaceport leaving in twelve minutes. All passengers for Luna +City, Moon Base, Asteroid Belt and points out, please go to the +landing deck. Bus line for spaceport leaving in twelve minutes—"</p> + +<p>He opened the letter when he had settled down in a comfortable morris +chair in the airbus. The letterhead said MANOBA Group Psychotherapeutic +Research and Conference Management.</p> + +<p>One sheet of it was a half page contract in fine print, apparently a +standard form with the name of Union Transport Corporation typed in +the appropriate blanks. Above it was printed in clear English and +large type for the benefit of those readers unaccustomed to contracts. +"WARNING. After you have signed this release you have no legal +recourse or claim as an individual against any physical or mental +injury or inconvenience you may claim to have sustained as a result of +the activities of the contracted psychotherapist(s) in the course of +group therapy. Your group is the responsible agent. It must make all +claims and complaints as a unit, and may withdraw from the contract as +a unit. Those who withdraw from the group withdraw from participation +in the contract."</p> + +<p>Bryce smiled. Or in other words, if you didn't like it, you could quit +your job and get out!</p> + +<p>The other sheet he glanced at casually. It seemed to be an explanatory +page to the effect that the Manoba's work was strictly confidential +and they were under no obligation to explain what they had done or +were doing or give their identities to any member of the corporation +who had hired them. There was nothing resembling a sales talk about +results, and the only thing approaching it was a stiff last sentence +referring anyone who was curious about the results of such treatment +to the National Certified Analytical Statistics of Professional +Standing in such and such bulletins of such and such years.</p> + +<p>He signed the contract, smiling, and mailed it at a handy postal and +telegraph window at the spaceport before boarding the spaceship.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he phone was ringing.</p> + +<p>Bryce rolled over sleepily and picked it up. "Eight A.M. L.S. S.S. +Sir," said the soft voice of the desk clerk.</p> + +<p>"Okay," he grunted, glancing at his watch and hanging up. It was two +minutes after eight, but he didn't check her up on it. If he placed +the voice rightly, it belonged to an exceptionally pretty brunette. He +had not tried to date her yet, but she looked accessible, and Mona was +becoming tiresome.</p> + +<p>He turned the dial in the headboard that reversed the polarization of +the window and rose reluctantly, stretching as sunlight flooded the +room. It was daylight on Moonbase City. It had been daylight for a +week, and it would be daylight still for another week.</p> + +<p>Through the softening filter of the airtight glass the view of distant +crater walls and the airsealed towers of Moonbase City shone in etched +magnificence, but he gave it only a glance. It was always the same. +There was no weather on the Moon and no variety of view.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," he smiled, passing a bellboy in the luxurious, deep +colored halls.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mister Carter," the boy answered rapidly with an eager +nervous smile.</p> + +<p>Bryce had caught the management up sharply on several small lapses, +and they all knew him now. He strode on, pleased. Efficiency.... No +one gave him a second glance or noticed him in the tube trains, but he +was not irritated by it. Someday they would. Someday the whole world +would know his face as well as they knew their own. He promised that +to them silently and then settled down to concentrate on some +constructive planning before reaching the office. He was not going to +waste his time gawking at ads or listening to the music like the +others.</p> + +<p>"Mister Carter?" said a hesitant voice behind him as he was reaching +for the handle of the office doors.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked crisply, turning, but as he saw who had spoken +he knew exactly what it would be.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me Mister Carter, but—" It was a spaceman, a skinny wreck of +a man in clothes that hung on him. A junky, a drug addict. Bryce knew +the signs. He had spent all his money and gone without food for his +drug, and now he had remembered from Belt talk that Bryce Carter was a +soft touch for a loan. "Never mind," Bryce snarled, reaching for the +door again.</p> + +<p>He assisted the smuggling of the stuff but that did not mean that he +had to admire the fools who took it. The man was muttering something +about a loan when the door shut and cut off his words. The loan would +be spent on more junk. If he had wanted food he could have signed into +a state hospital to take the Cure, and be imprisoned and fed until the +hunger for his drug had passed and released him. The Cure was a brief +hell, but it was fair payment for having had his fun, and if the +addict had any guts he would face it. Any time he was ready to pay the +price of exit he could go back to being a man.</p> + +<p>Bryce strode through the offices irritably. It did not matter if +Earthlings chose to waste their time in artificial ecstasy, but it was +different to see a good Belt spaceman let himself go.</p> + +<p>The receptionist looked up with fright in her eyes as he passed and +gave him a special good-morning, with a smile that was tremulous and +very eager to please. He still had her in the stage of new employment +where she was kept afraid of losing her new job with a bad reference. +It was best to put them all over the hurdles at first.</p> + +<p>He gave her a condescending smile as he went through into the inner +offices. "Good morning." She was shaky enough. A few well faked cold +rages against minor errors had done well. From now on she would need +only smiles to give the utmost in loyalty and hard work. What had +Machiavelli said? "Make them fear your wrath, and they will be +grateful for your forebearance."</p> + +<p>He did not bother to speak to Kesby when he passed his open office +door. Kesby didn't need smiles or praise, he worked loyally just for +the rare curt acknowledgement that he had done well. Three years of +managing had made him a good lieutenant, completely faithful. When +Bryce quit Union Transport Kesby would follow him.</p> + + +<h2>IV</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="34" height="40" /></div> +<p>e went into his luxurious inner office with its deep rugs and +eye-relaxing colors and its comfortable wide desk with its speaker box +and telephones that were like the nerve wires of power, and sat down +comfortably like a king on a throne or a mule skinner in the driver's +seat with ten pairs of reins in each hand. He never felt completely +awake and up to his full size in the morning until he was here.</p> + +<p>There was a good stack of letters and memos on the desk waiting for +him. On top of the mail stack was a letter labeled PRIVATE in a beamed +spacegram envelope. He did not recognize the name at the head of it +but the return address was General Delivery, Reef Three, The Belt. It +read:</p> + +<p><i>Something urgent has come up. Must see you. Arrange when. Bob.</i> +Roberto Orillo, who had been his manager in the small line that UT had +taken from him, now the owner of a tiny line of his own which +carefully avoided competition with UT in the Belt.</p> + +<p>"Arrange when." They could only meet in secret. What would Orillo want +to discuss?</p> + +<p>The theory he had held in the back of his mind for three days gave +answer—Murder! It was Orillo who was behind the attempted attack on +Earth. This meeting was another trap. Orillo wanted him dead.</p> + +<p>Roberto Orillo had been his first helper with the shipping and +delivery service Bryce had built up from the days when he had been +merely an asteroid prospector with a ship overstocked with supplies +and an obliging willingness to sell his surplus.</p> + +<p>After he put his traveling stores on schedule he noticed that an +increasing number of people began moving into the Belt to settle along +his route without investing in the proper ship or supplies, depending +on him, using his ship for a store and bus service, swelling his +profits. He found that wherever he chose to extend a route and offer +credit for a stake settlers would appear and a community begin to +grow.</p> + +<p>He absorbed that lesson and laid plans.</p> + +<p>UT blocked them. Running his store ships on their regular rounds, +making loans, mediating deals, taking half interests in ideas that +looked profitable, selling fuel and power, subtly binding his +customers to him with bonds of dependency deeper than peonage, Bryce +found suddenly that UT, whose trade mark had never been seen in the +Belt before, had slipped in five ships patterned precisely after his, +but larger, more magnificent and expensive, and set them running on +the same course as his but one day ahead. His customers told him. They +were apologetic but they had bought at the ship which came earliest, +enticed by the glitter and the bargain prices.</p> + +<p>It was a killing blow, and was obviously meant to be so. The UT +managers were wise in the ways of power, and with limitless money +could bankrupt him.</p> + +<p>That day Bryce saw that he could not fight UT from outside, and he saw +a dream of empire greater than Alexander ever dreamed of being ripped +from his hands. When a tactful and conciliating offer came from UT for +a merger and an exchange of stock at double its value, he saw it was +an indirect bribe for his silent submission without complaints to +Spaceways or to the Anti-Cartel Commission of the FN, and he saw that +the only way to compete with the gigantic corporation was to destroy +it from within.</p> + +<p>He held out for a seat on the Board of Directors. They gave it to him.</p> + +<p>And in three years had done an efficient job of corrupting and +undermining UT to the point where it was ready to fall. UT had a week +more to live in respected public service before an outraged public +tore it apart.</p> + +<p>Bryce had left Orillo in the Belt to form a small delivery company +servicing thinly settled outlying points where the profits were too +small to disturb UT. It would be this company that would take over and +buy out the UT equipment when Spaceways chopped up the monster +corporation, and it was planned that Orillo offer Bryce full +partnership when this event took place.</p> + +<p>But perhaps Orillo objected to sharing his reign with a partner. And +perhaps Orillo had always objected to the fact that Bryce was the only +one who knew Orillo was a fugitive from justice. Bryce had never quite +been able to tell what went on behind the handsome blond face and +impassive blue eyes of his assistant.</p> + +<p>Bryce had taken him in hand and given him a job after Orillo fled from +a murder charge in South Africa. And Bryce had arranged the operations +that gave Orillo a new face, new fingerprints and an unworried future. +Only Bryce could now give the word to the police which could bring the +examination that would show Orillo's retina tallied with that of a +wanted man.</p> + +<p>But if murder had always lain behind those impassive pale blue eyes, +why had there been no attempts before? The answer to that was easy. Up +to this time Bryce's activities had been profitable to Orillo. He had +seen where Bryce's plans were leading and wanted them to succeed, so +that he might step into Bryce's shoes and reap the results.</p> + +<p>In three more months Bryce's death would be the death of a partner, +and bring the unwanted spotlight of police investigation on Orillo +himself, but now, at this point, the disappearance of Bryce Carter +would bring police inquiry and suspicion only to the already shaky and +undermined fabric of UT.</p> + +<p>Bryce counted the profit and loss of his death to the man he had +helped, and smiled ruefully. Yet the request for the meeting might be +genuine and important. He had to take a chance on it and meet his +ex-assistant and future partner somewhere far away from witnesses, +recognition—or protection.</p> + +<p>Taking a memo pad he printed, <i>I'll meet you Friday; 3:PM LM</i>, and +wrote in the coordinates of a position in space not very far out from +Earth, indicated the radar blink signals for its buoy and clipped the +memo sheet to the envelope with its false name and return address. +Ringing for his secretary, he handed it to her.</p> + +<p>"See that that gets beamed back immediately. Friend of mine seems to +be in some sort of a jam."</p> + +<p>That was that. He turned to his work. After an hour or so the intercom +box clicked and Kesby said unexpectedly, "Visitor to see you, boss. +Can I send him in?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." The receptionist had strict orders to keep out everyone except +those scheduled for appointment, and to announce the names and +businesses of dubious cases for his deciding, but Kesby must have +overridden her decision. He sounded confident. Probably someone +important.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>esby opened the door with an expression half nervous, half +mischievous, "Your visitor," and closed it hastily as the person +stepped in.</p> + +<p>He didn't belong in there. It was obvious to Bryce that whoever he +was, he had gotten in through a lie.</p> + +<p>The young man who stood inside his office watching him was no one +connected with the business. He was too young for any position of +importance. The slender frailty of childhood was still with him. Yet +that impression soon faded under the impressiveness of his stance. It +was more than just arrogance or poise, it was an unshakable +confidence. As if no failure could be conceived.</p> + +<p>He stood balanced to move either forward or back. His voice was again +a surprise. Absolute total clarity, almost without inflection as if +the words reached the mind without needing a voice. "If you're going +to throw me out, this is the best time to do it." Dark brown skin of +one of the dark races, jet black straight hair, a dark pair of eyes +that were merry and watchful and had the impact of something +dangerous. Colossal gall, Bryce characterized it to himself. He might +be as good as he thinks he is. He was probably selling the Brooklyn +Bridge, and he should never have gotten in, but the fact that he had +somehow gotten past Kesby made him worth a few questions before being +thrown out.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?"</p> + +<p>He came forward to the desk to answer. "I want to be your right arm." +He took out a pack of cigarettes, shaking one free and offering it +with courtesy. "Have one?" Bryce shook his head and the boy put one +between his own lips and put the pack away. "My name is Pierce," he +said, lighting the cigarette with the flame cupped in his hands as if +he were used to smoking in the wind. He looked up with his eyes +squinting against the smoke, shook the match out and dropped it in the +desk ash tray. "Roy Pierce."</p> + +<p>He was as much at home as an invading army. Bryce felt an impulse to +laugh.</p> + +<p>He knew this kid very well, but he couldn't place where, when, or how. +"Am I supposed to know the name?"</p> + +<p>"Do you remember Pop Yak?"</p> + +<p>Bryce remembered Pop Yak. He gave in with a sigh, and ordered in the +singsong vernacular of his childhood. "Okay. Sitselfdel, speeltalk +cutchop!"</p> + +<p>Pop Yak was a grizzled man who had watched Bryce fighting with another +kid. Afterward he had taken Bryce into his store and given him ice +cream and some pointers on dirty fighting. Not much had penetrated the +first time but Bryce went back for advice again, learning that that +was the place to be told how to do things and get what he wanted. Pop +was always patient with his teaching, and always right.</p> + +<p>He had chosen Bryce as his agent to sell minor drugs to the other kids +and acted as a fence for the things he stole, and he encouraged him to +study in the compulsory school and loaned him books. And Pop was the +first to give him the tip on legitimate business and how to pull money +on the right side of the law and make a profit they couldn't kick +about. Good old Pop. "Will-pay." The boy sat down and leaned forward +with a slight intent motion of a hand that was Pop's favorite gesture, +one Bryce had picked up from him himself.</p> + +<p>"He told me you're on the way up." Roy Pierce held him with a steady +dark gaze. "I want a slice of that, and I want it the easy way, +hitching my wagon to your rocket. You can use me. A big man is too +public. You need a new hand and a new voice, one that does what you +want done, and can do it in the dark or the light, without your +name—a stand-in for alibis, and a contriver of accidents so they +break for you without your motion. A left arm that your enemies don't +recognize as yours."</p> + +<p>He was asking to be Bryce's substitute in the things that had to be +done without connection to himself, and yet had to be done by Bryce +himself, because no one could be trusted with the knowledge of them.</p> + +<p>Could he be trusted? His coming could be another trap by the +unidentified enemy. It was almost too providential, almost too well +timed. "References and abilities?"</p> + +<p>Roy Pierce reached into his wallet and handed out an aptitude profile +card backed by the universal test score listings in training and +skills on the other side. Bryce played with the card and studied the +youth. The boy was well dressed in a dark tailored suit of the kind +Bryce favored. He looked able, clean, cool and ruthless. "Armed?" +Bryce asked.</p> + +<p>A thing like a very thick cigar suddenly appeared in Pierce's hand. +The end of it pointing at him was solid except for a very small hole. +A needle gun, obviously, loaded with two and a half inch grooved drug +carrying needles.</p> + +<p>"Sleep or death?" Bryce asked.</p> + +<p>"Sleep," Pierce said, putting it away. "It's licensed." Bryce wondered +what made him so sure he could trust this kid. He analyzed while he +questioned. He did not bother to look at the card.</p> + +<p>"Languages?"</p> + +<p>"Basic coast pidgin, symbolic and glot." Basic English and Poliglot, +the two universals.</p> + +<p>"Detector proofed?" Lie detectors could be a nuisance, for they were +used casually and universally without needing the legal warrants and +deference to constitutional immunities and medical supervision of +hypno-questioning.</p> + +<p>Pierce smiled with a flash of white teeth. "First thing I ever saved +my money for."</p> + +<p>Though they spoke standard English, Bryce had placed his intonations +almost to the block he grew up in. Almost to the half block! He was as +familiar as Pop Yak, as familiar as his own face in the mirror, and as +understandable. Bryce knew the inside of his mind as well as if it +were a suddenly attached lobe of his own. It was like looking back +through time at himself younger and less complex.</p> + +<p>Pop Yak had turned out another on the same model, a younger simpler +duplicate of himself. Pierce was doing exactly what he said, offering +service to Bryce as he would offer him a sword, simply for the risk +and delight of being an instrument in a power game with stakes as high +as he had guessed Bryce's game to be. There was no danger of him being +a plant, and no danger of him squealing under pressure: the risk of +death or arrest was part of his pay.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_o1.jpg" alt="O" width="47" height="40" /></div> +<p>kay," Bryce said. He gestured with his head to a corner of the room +behind him. "Sit over there. You're my cousin from Montehedo, and I'm +showing you the town." He turned to his appointment pad again and +read. After Pierce had placed a chair in the indicated position, Bryce +said without turning. "This week I can use a bodyguard. Someone's +hiring killers for me."</p> + +<p>There was no sound of motion for a moment. Bryce got the idea that +Pierce was more surprised than the fact warranted. But his question +was gentle and deadly. "Any idea who?"</p> + +<p>"The line forms to the left." Bryce said dryly, "Put away that needle +gun and buy something legal that kills." He handed back a sheaf of +letters, memos and graphs. "Read these and learn." For some reason he +felt exhilarated.</p> + +<p>He turned back to work, routing shipments, shifting rates to balance +shifting costs, lowering rates for preliminary incentive on lines that +could run at lower cost with a heavier load, occasionally using the +Bell communication load analyzer and Kesby's formula analysis for a +choice of ways of averting bottlenecks and overload slow-down points, +sometimes consulting the solar system maps on the walls.</p> + +<p>Good service built up customer demand and dependency on good service. +Producers manufacturing now on Earth with the new materials shipped in +from space could not be cut off from access to the new materials +without ruin to the manufacturers. Earth was becoming dependent on +space transport.</p> + +<p>Once the customers were given it, they grew to need it. He smiled at +the thought. It was another kind of drug traffic, and wielded the +same kind of potentially infinite power over the customers.</p> + +<p>One thing he had learned from the Economics tome he had struggled with +four nights ago, a simple inexorable principle he had recognized dimly +before—that since it was difficult and more expensive to ship out +goods from Earth to space than it was to drop goods into Earth from +space, eventually spacepeople might be independent of Earth, and Earth +totally dependent on space products.</p> + +<p>The potentialities of the business game were amazing past anything Pop +Yak had ever hinted, but the funny thing was he had to find it out +step by step for himself. That kind of excitement wasn't in stories. +The adventures of explorers, research men, and detectives were written +into stories, but not money men. The life and growth and death and +blackmail of individuals were in the stories he had read, but not the +murder of planets and cities, the control and blackmail of whole +populations, in this odd legal game with the simple rules. Funny there +hadn't been lurid stories about this in the magazines he read as a +kid.</p> + +<p>He grinned—Well, the kids would read about <i>him</i>. In fifteen years +he'd have everyone under his thumb and they'd smile and bow and be +frightened just speaking to him.</p> + +<p>The work vanished rapidly, the pile of accumulated letters and reports +dwindling, and the phone ringing at intervals.</p> + +<p>Complaints he dealt with carefully, wording each letter in reply so as +to give the impression that he, Bryce Carter, was personally breaking +the corporation policy to satisfy the complainer, and adding a word of +praise on the intelligence and lucidity of the complaining letter. So +far he had made a total of some six hundred letter-writing allies that +way. Complainants were usually loquacious, interfering types who +expressed more than their share of public opinion, and many would +glorify him to everyone whose ear they could hold, if only to have it +known that they were on pally terms with a Director of the great UT.</p> + +<p>Many of the letters were merely friendly and chatty, telling of money +troubles, successes and family affairs. To these he recorded a few +friendly remarks on wire spool, telling the same joke to each, and +slipped each loop of wire into an envelope to be mailed.</p> + +<p>Pierce, studying a transport routing map, looked over and grinned at +the sixth repetition of the joke, and Bryce grinned back and continued +on recording a letter to an address in the Ozarks. "Got a young cousin +of mine in from Montehedo, Miss Furnald, he's sitting here watching to +see how a big business office operates and he's grinning at me because +it looks like I want to just sit and talk at my friends all day long. +I have fifty-nine business letters here to answer—honest to +God—fifty-nine, I just counted them, so I guess I'll cut off and show +the young squirt how I can work. Send me that photo of your sister's +new baby."</p> + +<p>He hung up the record mouthpiece. One more voter and loyal friend to +pull for him when he was a public figure and the going got rough.</p> + +<p>He grinned. It was a strange life and a strange game.</p> + + +<h2>V</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w.jpg" alt="W" width="48" height="40" /></div> +<p>hen he left the office with Pierce, someone stepped out of a corner +of the corridor and clutched at his sleeve, speaking rapidly. Bryce +brushed off the hand carelessly and walked on.</p> + +<p>"A junky," he remarked to Pierce. There was a quick flash of motion +behind them that sent them whirling to one side. Pierce stood aside +with the small needle gun in his palm waiting to see if it would be +needed, while Bryce finished the downstroke of his hand that sent the +knife and the junky reeling to the rubbery corridor flooring.</p> + +<p>"Shall I report him?" Pierce asked, making his needle gun vanish in +the same smooth motion it had appeared, and indicating a phone sign.</p> + +<p>"No. It doesn't matter," Bryce walked on thoughtfully. "Everyone wants +to kill me at once."</p> + +<p>Pierce said, "It's easy to sway a miserable man to the point of +pinning all his troubles and hate on to one name, like Bryce Carter."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Bryce. He saw that the smiling dark young man was +alert, walking a little ahead of him and glancing quickly left and +right as they approached corners and intersections and recessed +doorways where a man could wait unseen, doing his job as a bodyguard +efficiently and inconspicuously. "If it's the man I think it is," +Bryce told him, falling into step again after they passed the turn +into the tube trains, "he's working against a deadline. It's now or +never. There won't be any more of this after next month."</p> + +<p>Pierce answered after a glance at a passing mirror to see if they were +followed, and a quick scan of the train platform. "Your usual haunts +will be booby trapped. Better stay out of routine."</p> + +<p>That night, in the spacehands end of the city, they ate the dinner +that he usually had with Mona at a nightclub, or alone looking for a +good pickup in an expensive cocktail lounge. It was in the shipping +area around the docks, at the opposite end of the city from his usual +haunts. The ceiling was low and the glasses shivered and danced with +the constant muted thunder of jets that shuddered through the floor +from the nearby landing fields.</p> + +<p>His new assistant and bodyguard was pleasantly deferential, lighting +cigarettes for him, listening respectfully to his opinions, drawing +him out with questions that showed he understood what he was listening +to.</p> + +<p>Bryce could not remember having had such a good time talking since he +left the company of the meteorite miners at the Belt. Everything he +said seemed right and even brilliant. As he talked and told anecdotes +of his life and sketched some of his plans he saw his past life with +peculiar vividness as if he were a stranger seeing it for the first +time. In the reflected light of the interest and enthusiasm of his +audience, events took on a new glow of entertainment and adventure and +success where they had seemed to be just work and risk and routine at +the time.</p> + +<p>They had an evening to pass. Somehow Pierce got into conversation with +a little Egyptian who could have stood for Cyrano and had the same +merry impetuous way about him. Raz Anna was his name. He claimed to be +the Caliph of Baghdad, still incognito, or perhaps a professional +explorer disguised as a native. After a few drinks he enlisted them, +somewhat confusedly, as the two missing musketeers and they found +themselves wandering arm in arm from bar to bar and up and down dark +alleys interviewing the heathen natives.</p> + +<p>Bryce realized that he was laughing steadily and enjoying himself in a +way that had nothing to do with the small number of drinks he had had.</p> + +<p>He couldn't get any deference out of Raz. Raz wouldn't have deferred +to God himself, and it was no use trying to impress him, for nothing +impressed him. Apparently the hook-nosed, merry little man had no +ambition and no envy of anyone, and wanted no better of life than he +had at the moment.</p> + +<p>It was a strange new world they led Bryce through—Not the ragged, +starving, crowded viciousness of his childhood—not the fighting +equality of spacemen and rock miners, many of them wanted by the +law—not the simple barren hospitality of the settlers in the Belt who +owed him money, and who invited him to their sparse dinners in +gratitude—Those he had always managed to keep in their places and +exact a certain measure of respect.</p> + +<p>Even the smooth powerful men of wealth around him now accorded him a +certain measure of deference that was an acknowledgement of strength. +But the two musketeers he was with and the world they opened for him +seemed to respect neither distance nor politeness, nor hold any fear +for strength. Friendly insults, and uncritical friendliness mingled +oddly with the mock-solemn pretense of the fairy tale, and that part +was genuine and spontaneous. It didn't seem to be a different kind of +people he was meeting exactly: it was the same kind of people +approached differently. He didn't know exactly how it was done, and he +let the other two take the lead.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he had drunk too much, he thought as he rode the hotel +elevator. For in retrospect, the evening was a haze of pleasure that +was hard to pin his attention to. Everything he had said, everything +that had happened seemed profoundly right, an atmosphere which he had +encountered rarely before and only then in the last stage of +drunkenness. But he was sober. He had had only a few drinks, and his +perceptions seemed sharpened rather than blurred. Yet, where there +should have been critical thoughts and regrets for errors and restless +plans in his mind, there was only a pleasant empty buzz.</p> + +<p>"Too much talk," he thought, yawning as he walked down the luxurious +hotel corridor to his room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div> +<p>t was that night that he first noticed something wrong with the +mirror.</p> + +<p>He glanced into it casually while undressing, then not so casually, +walking up to it and inspecting his face. A slight, unpleasant tingle +coursed along his nerves.</p> + +<p>A stranger—When he tried to focus on what was wrong he could find +nothing that looked any different, yet the total effect was completely +wrong. He decided that it must be the mirror, some subtle distortion +of the reflection. The old one must have been broken in cleaning and a +new one put in.</p> + +<p>The chill passed and still the good blank feeling lasted. He went to +bed reviewing the evening and smiling, and went to sleep without +resorting to the mental arithmetic that he generally used to clear his +mind of dissatisfactions.</p> + +<p>The next morning the mirror still looked peculiar. There seemed to be +nothing wrong with the reflected image of the room, but when he gave +himself the usual inspection before stepping out into the corridor the +feeling of strangeness returned and his eyes felt as if they were +blurring.</p> + +<p>He put his hand up to his eyes instinctively and felt a distinct shock +when the mirrored image did the same.</p> + +<p>Odd.</p> + +<p>A slender smiling young man joined him in the lobby, rising and +falling into step with him as he passed, going through doors before +him with the inconspicuous alertness and precaution. He did his duties +as a bodyguard well, Bryce noted, but that was only to be expected. +Efficiency is, and should be, unnoticeable.</p> + +<p>One thing he discovered during the working morning at the office. +There had been nothing wrong with the mirror in his hotel room. The +washroom mirror was worse!</p> + +<p>He stood for a while, frozen in midstep, while he looked at a lean +tanned and freckled face which looked like a color movie of his, every +feature in its proper place as he remembered it, but yet not his. It +didn't belong to him. He made faces at it, and it made faces back as +if it were his, while he tried to believe that he was looking out of +the gray eyes which looked back at him, then he heard someone coming +in and left suddenly and sheepishly.</p> + +<p>That afternoon, after Pierce got into the swing of the work, he began +to be useful, fitting himself into the work routine as though he had +always been part of it, making the right calls and contacts and +appointments on the barest hints, handing him the phone intuitively as +he needed it, always at the right time with almost telepathic +instinct. While checking over the decisions and plans of Kesby and the +staff that needed his okay, and signing typed letters Bryce talked the +thoughts and plans which came half formed to mind, almost thinking +aloud. And when his remarks struck something that sounded like it +would be good to do soon, he saw Pierce jotting them down, later +detailing the preliminary steps for Bryce's use.</p> + +<p>And too, all the small tasks were being taken from him with easy +naturalness, saving him much time. His assistant was being what he had +claimed he would be, a genuinely useful left hand. Bryce found himself +proud of the kid's manifest efficiency, for he was a product of the +same school that Bryce himself had climbed from.</p> + +<p>On the way back to the hotel, after work, he caught Pierce glancing at +him with a thoughtful expression, and realized that he had been +faltering and giving a second glance to every public mirror that he +had passed. He was momentarily embarrassed, wondering if any strain +had showed on his expression.</p> + +<p>There was a party he had to go to that night so he changed to formal +clothes and stepped off again for the home of the FN Administrative +Governor of the Moon.</p> + +<p>He did not want to attend. It would be another of those stiff, +lonesome dinners he had suffered through before, but he had to learn +to make friends on his own social level, and be easy and convivial +with the kind of people he would be associating with the rest of his +life.</p> + +<p>After the first hour had given him a good test, Bryce decided that the +evening was as bad as he had anticipated. He stood on the outskirts of +a small group, holding a drink and watching resentfully as a +startlingly beautiful woman laughed and talked with the others of the +group and not with him. She had been introduced to him as Sheila +Wesley. The jokes she had with the others were quick and subtle +flashes of wit and insight, and seemed to be based on a mutual +understanding that he could not share, even though some of the others +had just been introduced and had been strangers to each other a few +minutes back; it was something he grasped vaguely as a common +background and approach to life that they shared, perhaps through +education.</p> + +<p>There were quick references to political situations they all seemed +familiar with, or a name that could have been some character in a book +they might all have read, or could have been somebody in history, each +reference followed by a subdued laugh and an added witty statement +from some other quarter. No one of them gave a word to him or noticed +that he was there.</p> + +<p>Why should they? He was dressed well and expensively, but so were they +all. He was a person of prominence and power, but so were they all, +and bored by it. He could not talk like the others. Then what could he +do to make Sheila Wesley smile at him the way she smiled down at the +ridiculous little fat man beside her as he excitably stuttered out his +opinions.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_s.jpg" alt="S" width="26" height="40" /></div> +<p>heila Wesley was not like Mona, to be captured by money and clothes +and influence. Would she be impressed even by the power he would have +later? He tried to picture her as tremulous and awed, hanging on his +words and flattering him, but he couldn't believe it. She probably +wouldn't notice him any more than now. There was nothing he could do +to impress her. He had thought Mona had poise, but now he saw that her +manner was just an inadequate carbon copy of a completely spontaneous +original. The woman, Sheila, managed to be poised, aloof, and yet +friendly to everyone, simultaneously warm and unattainable.</p> + +<p>He desired to be bitingly rude. That, at least, would make her admit +that he existed. She was smiling at that ridiculous little fat man +again.</p> + +<p>He drained his glass and, completely unnoticed, left the party. Nobody +would miss him, he was sure.</p> + +<p>Outside in the corridor, Roy Pierce, his assistant, was engaged in +conversation with two young men and two girls.</p> + +<p>"There he is now," he heard Pierce say.</p> + +<p>And one of the young men came toward him laughing.</p> + +<p>"Is it true that this lunatic cannot go and make up with the lady of +his heart because she has had him banned? If we all try to smuggle him +in—"</p> + +<p>And one of the girls, a really gorgeous blonde, called, "He was just +telling us about that time you were in space with the pirates after +you and they had stolen the big focusing mirror from the first Belt +foundry furnace. I'm sure you can tell it better—you tell it."</p> + +<p>He was surrounded by the five then. "Go ahead," they were urging, +laughing, "Go ahead!" "It didn't really happen did it?"</p> + +<p>This accusation was made by the pretty blonde. He looked at her half +indignantly. "I don't know how he tells it but it happened." And he +began to tell what had happened.</p> + +<p>The two girls and the two young men listened, adding occasional +startled interjections and admiring laughter.</p> + +<p>Pierce inserted an occasional question and Bryce became aware that in +answering them he was guided to stress and amplify points that made +clearer the danger and comedy. Later he became aware that he was half +consciously following the clues of Pierce's expression for the right +stress and mood of the telling, now off-hand and smiling in telling +what he had done, now heavily dramatic mimicking and burlesquing the +tones and threats of the outlaws, now ironic and bitterly indifferent +in passing over damage and deaths—as a wryly lifted eyebrow in the +dark young face listening, and a faint imperceptible shrug made him +see what had happened from a different angle than he had seen it then. +Pierce apparently had something he needed, a good story sense. +Following him must be something he had learned unconsciously last +night, but it worked. He could see how well it worked in the +expressions of his audience.</p> + +<p>Someone leaving the party had stopped to listen, standing behind his +right shoulder. When he finished, amid the exclamations and sighs of +his listeners a cool, familiar voice drawled.</p> + +<p>"That's quite a story. I picked up something about that at the new +foundry on reef five, but it was already an old yarn then." She stood +before him, still smooth and poised and lovely, offering her hand. +"I'm glad to hear it from the horse's mouth. Aren't you Bryce Carter? +We were introduced in there, I think, but the name didn't click."</p> + +<p>It was Sheila Wesley.</p> + +<p>That evening was something to remember.</p> + +<p>First they were a private party at a nightclub, then at a small +restaurant. Tom, Betty, who was the pretty blonde, Ralph and the +pretty brunette whose name was Marsha, Pierce, himself and Sheila. The +talk ranged wildly over a multitude of subjects, breaking sometimes +into collective fantasies of nonsense like a hat full of fireworks +that left them laughing helplessly, sometimes shifting to philosophy +and mutual confidences. Every so often Pierce brought the subject +around to something that struck home to Bryce and he found himself +holding forth with unexpected passion and eloquence, and he was +surprised to see that the others were keenly interested.</p> + +<p>Pierce rarely said more than an occasional cheerful remark, but in the +more subtle plays of conversation Bryce found himself still half +consciously consulting the cues of his expression to find what his own +reaction should be, to find the right word and the right attitude that +pleased the table and urged them all on to greater and more fantastic +heights of talk. It was obvious that Pierce never had any difficulty +understanding anyone. He had an instinct that Bryce lacked, and Bryce +willingly surrendered to superior skill and followed his silent lead.</p> + +<p>Sheila he discovered, besides being a member of one of the top +diplomatic families, had worked for a short while as a consultant at +the Belt plastic manufactory when it was being set up, and had taken +to space life. She shared his enthusiasm about the future of the +Asteroid Belts.</p> + +<p>It was an unprecedented evening. At the close of it he had four new +friends, and had discovered that "Tom" was Thomas Mayernick, one of +the attorneys of the Spaceways Commission, and one of the men whom he +had gone to the dinner to meet.</p> + +<p>And Sheila, tall and slender and beautiful, pressed his hand as the +group parted, and said in her wonderful voice, "I want to see you +again Bryce," she smiled. "I eat at the technicians' end of town, you +know. I'll be with a Group at Geiger's Counter, tomorrow lunch. If you +bear the company of slide rule artists we'd be glad to see you any +time."</p> + +<p>He stood for a moment, oddly surprised.</p> + +<p>"Say thank you to the lady." Pierce smiled. And to Sheila, "You +shouldn't startle people like that, Ma'm. His heart's weak."</p> + +<p>"I just dropped dead," Bryce said, finding words. "You aren't leading +me on? You'll be there?"</p> + +<p>"On my honor," she smiled. "Good night, Bryce." She was used to such +tributes. Half mocking as they were, she knew how much they were +basically sincere, and accepted their tribute to her beauty as a +matter of course. What a wife to have and introduce as his wife to +other men, and see the look in their eyes.</p> + +<p>He remembered suddenly that he had not once mentioned that he was a +Director of UT. Somehow the conversation had never been led to a +subject where he could have said it. He made a mental note to tell her +next time. It seemed strange that he had been with five people so many +hours without informing them that he was a Director of UT. He had done +the same thing last night, now he remembered. But they had seemed to +like him without it.</p> + +<p>He let himself into his hotel room and turned on the light, but the +first sidewise glimpse of himself in the mirror was disturbing. He +solved that problem by the remarkably simple expedient of turning the +light out again, and undressed in the dark, grinning foolishly.</p> + + +<h2>VI</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>pproaching the scientists' and technicians' row along the subsurface +arcades, the expensive restaurants grew fewer and were replaced by +German-type beer halls, schools with courses advertised in their +posted schedules whose titles were completely unintelligible to him, +and second hand bookstalls selling battered technical books and +journals whose titles were undecipherable in any tongue Bryce could +think of. The lunch hour crowds were beginning to pour out into the +arcades from elevators and tube trains in a rush to get first place in +their favorite eating places.</p> + +<p>Pierce half turned as if his eyes caught on the expression of a face +behind them.</p> + +<p>"Carter! There you are, you bastard!" The voice came from behind him, +thick with rage, but more than that was the insult. It meant +challenge. This was nothing in which Pierce could defend him!</p> + +<p>Bryce wheeled, left hand automatically plucking out his magnomatic, +wondering if the attacker would be the honorable kind of duelist who +would hold fire long enough for him to get his gun out.</p> + +<p>Miraculously it seemed to be happening. He already had his sights +halfway on to the speaker when he recognized him, a gross heavy figure +he had seen a hundred times. Mr. Beldman of the Board of Directors. +What was he doing on the Moon?</p> + +<p>Beldman stood with his fists on his hips and his legs spraddled, +sneering at Bryce. "That's right," he said, heavily sarcastic, "start +shootin' when you're surrounded by innocent spectators; when you know +I can't draw on you. That's the way of a crook." The husky base voice +echoed from the walls. Behind him to the bend of the corridor people +were scattering hastily out of the firing line.</p> + +<p><i>Crook</i> was the central word. Somehow Beldman had found out that Bryce +was responsible for the corruption of UT, and he was dealing with the +matter in the most direct way that it could be dealt with, for a death +in a private duel would be laid to a quarrel and not investigated.</p> + +<p>How had he found out? Bryce forced down the question as he stiffly +reholstered his magnomatic. There was no use thinking of that until +the question of surviving the next five minutes was settled. He stood +with his hands empty, feeling curiously empty inside, oddly missing +the white rage and love of murder that usually carried him through +such things.</p> + +<p>It seemed too good a day to spoil. He would rather have continued his +way to lunch with Sheila, and let the man live—or let himself live. +This would be no duel for a little bloodletting. Beldman's purpose was +to kill. And Beldman himself, knowing what he knew, had to die. "Do +you understand what you have said, sir?" Bryce used the formal words +of the dueling countries.</p> + +<p>"You're damn well right I do!"</p> + +<p>"Are you prepared to take the consequences, sir?"</p> + +<p>"More ready than you are," Beldman said, his hands still on his hips. +He amplified his remark with a few well chosen words that harked back +to his truck driving days.</p> + +<p>"How many shots?" Bryce asked more softly, beginning to want to kill.</p> + +<p>"Until one of us is down with his gun out of his hand."</p> + +<p>Bryce repeated the provision to the crowd that had drawn up discreetly +along the side-lines. "We fire until one of us is both down and +disarmed."</p> + +<p>There was a murmur of surprise among the crowd for that was an unusual +and deadly provision for a formal duel. As Bryce paced backward the +required number of paces, counting aloud, two men volunteered as +seconds. They came forward to compare the guns rapidly and show them +to the duelists. It had to be done and finished rapidly, for lunch +hour had begun with its flood of people into the corridors, and they +were holding up traffic.</p> + +<p>Bryce's gun was a .42 magnomatic, working on an electrical +acceleration of the slug by electromagnetic rings in the thick barrel. +It was soundless except for a legal built-in radio yeep that announced +its firing and number to the police emergency receivers. Beldman's gun +was another maggy of the same make but heavier with a wide-mouthed +barrel apparently throwing a much heavier caliber slug.</p> + +<p>"Ready?" The second stepped back to the edge of the crowd and began +counting off half a minute by seconds.</p> + +<p>The faces of the crowd faded from his consciousness. Bryce stood with +his hands empty at his sides as the seconds were counted. "Thirty, +twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven," came the voice, counting +evenly and loudly. The world narrowed to a corridor of space with the +blocky figure of Beldman at one end and himself at the other. Funny, +Bryce thought, that he had never considered that bull-headed +impatience and strength as dangerous. He was a massive block of a man; +where Bryce was thick with muscle, J. H. Beldman was so wide in +shoulder and barrel and so thick in arm that he looked almost round. +Like Bryce he had worked up from the bottom, Bryce remembered, +starting as a truck driver and labor organizer, and then owning his +own line and giving UT a stiff battle before being bought out. Crude, +but that didn't mean that there wasn't a lightning brain behind that +round face.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three—"</p> + +<p>He had underestimated the deadliness of the man. Beldman was obviously +subject to rages, and in the grip of one now, and if he had survived +all the duels and battles that his rages had brought long enough to +grow as old as he was then his age was an indication not of weakness, +but of the degree of his deadliness. The irritable thought came that +he might well be killed by this ox.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen—"</p> + +<p>He flexed his fingers restlessly, and felt in his mind the speed and +sureness of his draw and firing. That big blocky figure was just +another obstacle standing in his way, to be blasted aside. A loud +mouth to be shut.</p> + +<p>"Ten, nine—" He concentrated on the counting, "—six, five, four—" +sureness growing like a coiled spring in every muscle, "—three—" He +crouched slightly. That blocky figure that was all the rest of the +world was no more than a target. A big target.</p> + +<p>"Two—one—<i>fire</i>."</p> + +<p>Something confusing happened. As the word came it seemed that a +gigantic blow hit him somewhere on his left shoulder, twisting him +around so he couldn't see his target. He spun back, willing himself to +shoot again quickly, but his legs buckled oddly as he turned. He +reeled, finding his balance with great effort.</p> + +<p>Heavy slug, he thought, seeing as delayed memory the coiled spring +speed with which Beldman had moved. Bryce's left arm did not seem to +have any connection with his mind. Glancing down briefly he saw that +it dangled.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_b.jpg" alt="B" width="34" height="40" /></div> +<p>ut the maggy was still there, held in the numb, unfeeling hand, +pointed limply at the ground.</p> + +<p>He wondered if he had fired it yet.</p> + +<p>"Drop it and fall down," advised Pierce's clear voice from somewhere.</p> + +<p>There was a stirring and whisper from the blur of the crowd who stood +watching to see that the rules were observed. Beldman was walking +towards him.</p> + +<p>"Do you end the duel?" asked someone, probably the second.</p> + +<p>"No," the blur of Beldman answered and suddenly he came into focus, +walking up, his wide mouthed gun unwavering in his hand. Bryce +remembered the provisions of the duel. Fire until one is down and +weaponless. There was nothing said about remaining at a fixed +distance. Beldman intended to walk up close enough to shoot him +between the eyes. It was too late to let himself fall and end the +duel. Beldman would fire if he saw Bryce begin to fall now. He was +already close enough for a sure head shot.</p> + +<p>Feeling was returning to his left arm. It dangled abnormally far and +probably looked broken and useless, but there was nothing actually +wrong with it, only something in his shoulder was broken. After the +first cold numbness of impact, sensation returned tingling in his +fingers, and pain was beginning to burn in his shoulder. Bryce waited +a few more seconds, feeling the control returning to his fingers, not +changing the glazed off focus of his eyes. How many duels had Beldman +won like this? The impact of one of those heavy slugs hitting bone was +a dazing blow, enough to stun some men, and he probably counted on +that effect.</p> + +<p>The square figure lumbered closer, a lumpish clumsy caricature of the +self-made man, brutally strong, unashamedly misfit to the society of +the smooth-wise, smiling, easy mannered people that he and Bryce had +joined; a model of everything that Bryce was trying to destroy in +himself.</p> + +<p>With a quick twist of the wrist Bryce swung his palm flat up flipping +the magnomatic muzzle into line with it and put a bullet into the +round face.</p> + +<p>In that position of his hand the back kick of the shot twisted his arm +back in its broken shoulder and pulled the maggy from his hand, but it +didn't matter. The duel was over.</p> + +<p>The motionless crowd dissolved again into talking individuals going to +lunch.</p> + +<p>Pierce picked up the maggy and made the usual query of those who chose +to remain.</p> + +<p>"Which of you has any complaint of unfairness or advantage taken by +either party of this duel?"</p> + +<p>Most of them were leaving, anticipating the arrival of the police with +their time-consuming questions, but twenty or so crowded close around +Bryce and the corpse. "Press a thumb on your shoulder sub-clavian, +man," someone advised Bryce. "You're bleeding like a faucet."</p> + +<p>Pierce's clear voice said the standard words over the murmur and +shuffle of feet. "No unfairness having been observed, when called to +give testimony you can then say that he shot in self-defense and under +duress."</p> + +<p>A low wail of sirens was heard.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w2.jpg" alt="W" width="62" height="40" /></div> +<p>ho was that character?" Pierce asked later, sitting beside the table +while a surgeon patiently pieced together the three or four shattered +pieces of Bryce's collarbone and fastened them with ingenious plastic +bolts.</p> + +<p>Bryce absently watched the process in a large tilted mirror slung +overhead. Medicine bored him. "J. H. Beldman, member of the Board of +Directors," he explained, and for the benefit of the policeman +standing beside the door he added, "Bad tempered as they come." He +looked into the mirror uneasily, trying to focus on his face.</p> + +<p>His clothes were being cleaned of blood and dried somewhere. When the +doctor had finished sewing and patching Bryce showered and dressed in +a small dressing room beside the emergency ward, where he found his +clothes hanging neatly in a drying closet.</p> + +<p>As he finished a man in plain clothes entered and dismissed the cop +with a word, and handed Bryce a printed notice and his magnomatic; +"You're clear," he said, leaving again with a friendly half salute. +"No charges." The police had already recorded the testimony of the +witnesses and inspected the weapons used. It had been a fair duel and +the survivor was clear with a standard case for self-defense. The +printed notice called him to testify at the coroner's inquest into the +death of J. H. Beldman during the next Saturday, but there would be no +charges and no investigation.</p> + +<p>There would be no trouble from Beldman, but who else knew what he had +known, that Bryce Carter was responsible for the corruption of UT? How +had he learned it? If someone else knew, there was going to be +trouble.</p> + +<p>Coming out of the emergency ward, he checked his watch.</p> + +<p>One-fifteen. Too late to find Sheila Wesley still at Geiger's Counter. +But he knew he could see her another day—and with a good story to +explain why he had not turned up the first time.</p> + +<p>They ate at the nearest stand and went back to work. Trying to write +was almost impossible, and even using his left hand for minor tasks +was difficult. In spite of quick healing of muscle and flesh from the +amino and nucleic acid powders the doctor had packed in, the shoulder +ached with a tightness that spoiled his coordination. He shifted to +writing clumsily with his right hand.</p> + +<p>After twenty minutes he abandoned the pretense of working and began +thoughtfully doing practice draws with his right hand. It was stiff +and clumsy, and there was no holster in his right pocket to make +grasping easy. The second time the maggy caught on his pocket edge and +slipped from his hand he left it on the rug where it had fallen, +sitting looking at it thoughtfully for a moment. Today was the day he +would meet Orillo.</p> + +<p>"How well can you handle a four tube cabin cruiser?"</p> + +<p>"Line of sight only. I'm no navigator," Pierce responded.</p> + +<p>Bryce said soberly, realizing what he had decided, "This is a good day +to have a bodyguard who's a good shot. I have an appointment to meet a +friend—and I'm not sure he's a friend."</p> + +<p>"I shoot," Pierce said, writing at one of the letters he had been set +to. "Happy to oblige. Shall I wear my bulletproof clothes?"</p> + +<p>"You could do with something like that," Bryce said soberly.</p> + +<p>Pierce looked up from the letters. "Would this be the man behind all +these bullets, and you're meeting him in space?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"In armor plated tanks with heavy artillery?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"No light and heavy cruisers. No marines?"</p> + +<p>"Just you." Bryce was smiling at Pierce's mock astonishment. He knew +that the kid didn't care in the slightest where Bryce led him as long +as there was a fight at the end of it, and he left it to Bryce to +choose the odds.</p> + +<p>The odds might be even enough. Orillo himself, if he came with murder +as his intention, would bring no helpers for witnesses, and he would +expect Bryce to bring none. Or if he had hired assassins, he would not +come himself, and they would not know who had hired them, but they +would have been told to expect one man only.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he secrecy of any meeting in space is practically absolute. If there +is one thing which space has plenty of, it's distance—distance enough +to lose things in, distance enough to hide in, distance enough so that +even if you know where something is by all the figures of its +coordinates, if it's smaller than a planet you can't find it even when +you are there. To put it crudely, what space has is space. And finding +something that doesn't want to be found in space is like looking for a +missing germ in the Atlantic.</p> + +<p>He had the coordinates of the beacon he had chosen for his appointment +point and the robot pilot took him to that area with automatic +precision. But once there he had to cruise manually back and forth +three times through the perpendicular plane of Earth's equator before +picking up the radar pip of the buoy, which was set to broadcast its +presence by a circular sweep of radar pulses on a flat plane +corresponding to the Earth equatorial average.</p> + +<p>He found it no later than expected, which was over an hour early, on +the principle that he who arrives first finds no ambush.</p> + +<p>He left Pierce with certain instructions and floated from the ship to +the familiar globe that spun so placidly on the anchoring rod that +attached it to the controlling buoy. The buoy was powered strongly +enough to have controlled the orbits of fifty such globes without +strain. Buoys of that type were just beginning to be popular in the +Belt.</p> + +<p>Once inside he opened his faceplate, looking around with the same +pleasure he always felt on his visits here. It was like being back at +the Belt for a time. After the raw harshness of the moon and the +artificial luxuries of its cities, after the agoraphobic vastness of +Earth's giant surface, to be within this little close-knit familiar +world was soothing and relaxing. It was a green glade of leaves and +branches, greenness underfoot and overhead, a brown metal cliff with +vines and a door to his left, a larger brown metal cliff like the +round head of a barrel with doors in it to his right, and a circular +silver door in the center. Behind the small right hand cliff was the +small amount of regulating machinery required, behind the doors of the +larger cliff was a small kitchen, and convertible study-bedrooms. +Behind the silver door was a corridor leading to the airlock and +space. It was forty feet from cliff to cliff, and from the growing +greenery underfoot to the growing greenery overhead, as spacious as a +wide glade in the woods of Earth.</p> + +<p>He picked his way among the vines and shrubs to a carpetlike patch of +green moss and sat down comfortably to wait. Pierce had drawn the ship +off beyond detector range by now, and it would seem to any ship +approaching that he had not yet arrived.</p> + +<p>It was peaceful there, no breeze stirred the leaves. Twenty feet +above, fixed in the air on clear spokes of lucite, the crystal globe +that was the sun for this small world gave forth its warming flood of +light, sunlight borrowed from the sunlight outside and led in on the +lucite spokes.</p> + +<p>He had an interest in its manufacture, and had anchored his globe here +as a commercial sample of a spaceglobe for the viewing of likely +settlers. It was slightly better and more compact, since it was a +newer model, contained in an ovoid hull that was only forty-six by +sixty-six feet, but in essence it was like any of the farms and homes +of the asteroid belt, and there was nothing like it on any planet in +the universe.</p> + + +<h2>VII</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_b.jpg" alt="B" width="34" height="40" /></div> +<p>ehind the silver door a bell rang suddenly. A spaceship was +approaching.</p> + +<p>It was still early. They would see the globe alone and assume that +Bryce had not yet arrived. The spaceship itself might be armed +illegally, but those within would not blast the globe without checking +its interior. Bryce glanced up at the silver door in the cliff and +arranged his position so as to be lounging on one elbow, with his gun +hand lying relaxed under a thin curtain of leaves. The magnomatic was +pointing up towards the corridor door.</p> + +<p>There were a few tall bushes between the base of the cliff and +himself, but the silver central door was five feet up a flight of +steps and in clear view.</p> + +<p>Four flights of steps radiated away from the circular door to the +hull, like spokes from an axle, all of them leading "down" to the +inside surface of the globe. As he waited he heard the faint clang of +magnetic soles hitting the metal of the airlock, and then the door +chimes that announced that the airlock was being used. Someone was +coming in.</p> + +<p>He could follow their actions in his mind, timing them. Now they would +be floating in the vestibule, facing a circular wall with a door, the +wall spinning silently and rapidly, and the door in its center turning +slowly end over end. The door marked the axis of rotation. There was a +turning bar with handles running through the center of the airlock. +They would float up to that and grip it to pick up spin, until the +vestibule seemed to be rotating around them and only the circular wall +and the central door seemed to be steady. Beyond it would be the +corridor, and then the silver door.</p> + +<p>The door in the cliff dilated silently. Two spacesuited men stood in +it.</p> + +<p>It was incredible that he had let them come in without seeing the door +open. In the first split second he saw that neither of them was +Orillo. In the second instant he saw that no weapons were visible, but +that one stood slightly behind the other and his right arm was hidden.</p> + +<p>They had happened to come to the entrance at an angle to his +orientation, almost at right angles, and they would be confused for a +moment, before they identified his shape, for to their orientation if +they used Earth-thought for it, he would seem to be leaning head +downward on an almost vertical slope. He took advantage of the lag to +move his gun under its curtain of leaves and get the sights lined on +them.</p> + +<p>They swung their eyes around the circle and saw him. "Mister Carter?" +asked the foremost one. Their faceplates were still closed, and their +voices slightly distorted by transmission through the helmet speaker, +but he could hear a note of surprise. As the first one spoke the +second one moved his hidden arm slightly, as if he were holding +something.</p> + +<p>Bryce did not tighten his finger on the trigger. These could be mere +innocent sight-seers. The position of his head, almost upside down +relative to theirs, was probably confusing them, though almost +certainly they had studied trimensional photographs of him. At any +rate they probably were aware that they were standing like targets in +the corridor doorway and would be in no mood to postpone action.</p> + +<p>"Take off your helmets, gentlemen, make yourselves at home." It was a +partial admission that he was the man they wanted, but not certain +enough for a decision. He saw the shoulder-twitch that meant that the +second one's hidden hand jerked in a moment of uncertainty, and he +thought he saw something glitter under the first one's arm—the old +trick of shooting from under a friend's screening arm....</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bryce Carter?" the foremost one was asking again.</p> + +<p>Bryce smiled. "No, Pierce," he said. He had turned on the two-way +speaker and tuned it to the ship as he came in.</p> + +<p>Immediately the voice came in the corridor behind them. "Stand still. +You're covered."</p> + +<p>There was no chance that anyone could genuinely be behind them, but +the rear one whirled and snapped a startled shot into the darkened +corridor, and the other leaped sidewise down from the doorway, drawing +his gun with blurred speed, and leveling on Bryce as his feet left +contact with the sill. He was falling slowly, almost floating, and it +should have been an easy shot, except for something he had obviously +forgotten, or he never would have leaped.</p> + +<p>Bryce disregarded him as a danger, and threw three shots at the other, +who still stood startled and off balance in the corridor, firing three +with his inexperienced right hand to make sure of placing even one. +The figure dropped out of sight in the corridor.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div> +<p>n the flick of time that Bryce's eyes had been away from the falling +one, the path of the man's leap had begun to curve strangely, until +now he seemed to be floating in a curve, flying sidewise and upward, +faster and faster as he approached the hull. The rule of conservation +of momentum was having its way. To the man's dizzied eyes, as he tried +to keep Bryce within his sights long enough to fire, it must have +seemed that the ground began inexplicably to turn and slide by, that +suddenly the whole shell was turning around him like a big wheel, +carrying his target up the wall and over his head.</p> + +<p>He was almost to the sliding ground when a bush caught at his feet and +yanked them from under him with a crackling of branches, and the +bottom tread of a flight of stairs swung at his head like a gigantic +club. Among the sudden splintering of branches and snapping of vines +was a crunching thud which sounded final.</p> + +<p>To anyone within a globe, it did not ordinarily appear to be spinning, +the only sign it was, was the comfortable pseudo-gravity for anyone +standing on hull level. But to those who approached the ground from +the lighter G corridor, the stairs were necessary—stairs whose treads +were oddly dipped in the middle in a shallow U. By bracing against one +side of the U coming down, and on the other going up, one invisibly +picked up enough speed to match the speed of the ground level. Jumping +was the equivalent of jumping out of a moving car at forty feet a +second, the sixteen feet a second, half of the corridor plus an extra +thirty feet a second spin, the side slip speed of an eighteen foot +drop where it had looked like five.</p> + +<p>It was probably these added extra distances in the air, Bryce decided, +that sometimes made the bird flights look so bewilderingly variable in +speed and direction. He had not thought before how difficult it would +be to plot a straight course from one side of the globe to the other.</p> + +<p>He waited for a sign of motion, his magnomatic ready, looking up at +the gunman lying overhead, forty feet away on the other side of the +globe. The limp figure was unmoving, it looked badly tangled in vines, +and its gun was gone. There was no need to shoot, but he wondered +suddenly, if he had, what kind of a curve would the bullet have +followed?</p> + +<p>There was no sound from the other, but Bryce hesitated to climb the +stairs and put his head above floor level of the corridor. A voice +might give the other direction for a snap shot if that was what he was +waiting for. Bryce chanced speaking.</p> + +<p>"I've got this one, Pierce. How's the other?"</p> + +<p>The televiewer in the entrance hall replied, "Lying on his back with +his gun five feet away. You all right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." Bryce walked around the circumference of the globe and searched +in the vines for the missing weapon of number one. The body in the +spacesuit nearby was quite definitely a corpse. He saw the gun +glittering a little further on and picked it up, wiping off leaf pulp +on a clean patch of moss. It was a heavy duty police pacifier, a +distance stunner, adjusted to a narrow beam.</p> + +<p>He climbed to the corridor and collected the other weapon. It was a +police pacifier too. They had not meant direct murder then, but only +to stun him and deliver him to Orillo, C. O. D.</p> + +<p>"How are you doing with their ship?" Bryce asked, "Is it armed?" +Armament for spaceships was illegal, and careful official inspection +made it rare.</p> + +<p>"I didn't wait to see," Pierce's voice came apologetically after a +pause in which some background noise sounding like a crash came over +the televiewer speaker. "It started swinging around when I came in +sight, so I just rammed it with that pretty ornamental nose spike. I'm +backing off now with the forward braking jets."</p> + +<p>"Then whoever's inside is probably either spacefrozen or cooked. +Jockey that ship around on the spike and give her a four minute shove +toward Earth, then push that button that collapses the ornamental +vanes on the spike and let it pull loose when you start braking. I +don't want any ship hulks floating around here."</p> + +<p>"Aye-aye, Cap."</p> + +<p>"Go slow on those braking jets when you pull loose. The back wash +could touch your hull."</p> + +<p>Pierce returned and came in to help Bryce drag the corpses through the +airlock and into space.</p> + +<p>They braced against the silver curve of the floating spaceship and +gave the body a combined strong shove towards Earth. Spinning slowly +end over end it dwindled into a dark speck against the glowing orb of +Earth, destined to be a meteorite and make a small bright streak in +the Earth sky several days later.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>When the tubes conk out, the fuel runs down,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The cold creeps in to where I lie.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Pierce was reciting as they went back into the globe for the second +corpse.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>I'll take the meteor's trail—go home to Earth</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And make a Viking's funeral in the sky.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"This is too easy," Bryce complained as they watched the second corpse +fade from sight. "The trouble is, in space all corpses are delicti. +It's an incentive. Launch your enemies."</p> + +<p>"Gaucho country did all right under that system," Pierce said +somberly, "and so did the American frontier." He floated motionless, a +spacesuited figure turned toward the gray-green misted globe of Earth +that shone against the black star-sprinkled sky as if he could have +reached out and touched it. The sun caught the planet on its day +hemisphere and reflected brilliantly from a shadowy blue glaze of +water that was the Mediterranean, turning half of it to white fire.</p> + +<p>Bryce's earphones picked up Pierce's voice again. "Frontier-born +nations always look back and say that the first years were the best."</p> + +<p>The words caught at something Bryce had felt before. He looked at +Earth hanging splendidly in space. It was beautiful and he was fond of +it, but—He said, "I don't think we'll ever go back." Nor would +mankind itself. Never again—through all conquests from this point in +time—would mankind go back down into the mesh of gravity to be a thin +film over the surface of a planet.</p> + +<p>"Give old Earth a smile, Bryce, we've hatched."</p> + +<p>For a moment longer Bryce hung, watching Earth turning below. The +management of UT was down there. He'd be damned if he'd let them get +away with thinking they could tell him what to do, or tell the Belt +where a line should be extended and a colony planted. The belt was his +country, not theirs. Space belonged to the people who lived in it.</p> + +<p>"No taxation without representation," Pierce said irrelevantly, as if +he had been reading Bryce's thoughts. They jetted back to the ship and +into the spacelock.</p> + +<p>"Frontier country—" Bryce said as he stepped into the cubical of the +revolving door. Gently tightening elastic bands drew him into position +within the man-shaped mold. "What's a frontier on your terms, Roy?" +When he was in place the other half of the rubbery, air-excluding mold +closed on him and the airtight cylinder rotated, delivering him into +the interior of the ship. He pushed the button impatiently to have it +revolve back for Pierce, but it remained obstinately open, its servo +refusing to close on a mold full of air and rotate air back for +release into space.</p> + +<p>Bryce remembered then. This was something he didn't have to bother +with when he flew alone, for when going in or out he was always in the +door when it rotated; it never turned empty. Beside the door on a hook +hung an inflated pressure suit, complete with gloves, boots, and +helmet. Except for the absence of any sign of a head or face inside +the dark translucence of the helmet it looked like a full-sized man. +Bryce reached it down and placed it in the mold, and watched grinning +as the mold closed and the door rotated, delivering the man-form to an +equivalent hook in the spacelock. The doll was known by all spacemen +as Hector Dimwitty, and every ship had one or two. There were a +thousand yarns and jokes circulating about the adventures of the +Hectors, most of them lewd, and a few of them true.</p> + +<p>Pierce's answer was in his earphones, "A frontier is where people go +when they are young, broke, or have the cops after them."</p> + +<p>"Right. Suppose I stake the broke, and loan them transport, and offer +the fugitives unregistered safety to receive mail and to buy +supplies?"</p> + +<p>"You do that?" Pierce stepped out of the door and they took off their +helmets.</p> + +<p>"Yes, when I am my own man, not working for UT."</p> + +<p>"If you do that, you bring in ten times as many of the broke who +wanted to settle there, and—" Pierce took a long jump in +understanding, saying softly, "They're dependent on you. Handcuffed to +you and praying for your health and prosperity as long as you hold +their loans and secrets, for with your death or bankruptcy, another +man might come to your books to read the records of your loans, and +demand payment, and give the secrets to the police or keep them for +his blackmail. But to do it is to take a risk of murder or arrest, and +a high cost in hard work and money. Why do you want to do this? What +payment do you take?"</p> + +<p>"They pay by being my men, grateful and ready to back me up when I +want help later. They don't have to be grateful, for they know I can +call any loan if the owner crosses me, and I've built a reputation for +an occasional fit of irrational temper that is threat enough for +anyone to avoid crossing me, without feeling that I have wanted to +threaten or force them. As for the fugitives they pay enough by +wanting the Belt to be organized as a nation independent of Earth, so +that the hand of the law can't stretch out and drag them back, and +they can become wealthy in open business, in the million chances for +wealth that lie around them in the Belt. They don't know that they +want this yet, but they will see it when it is told to them. I can't +do any of this now—it's suspended for as long as I am part of UT and +have to drag the dead weight of ten Earth-tied conservatives with me +in every decision."</p> + + +<h2>VIII</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="34" height="40" /></div> +<p>e stopped to set in the coordinates of the Moon for the robot pilot, +but he found himself still wanting to talk. "Man has reached space—do +you think he'll ever go back to the ground? In space he has gravity +only when he wants it, and any weight of gravity he likes, depending +on how fast he spins his house. And no gravity when he wants that. You +see what that means to engineers in the advantage of building things? +No weight in transportation, no weight in travel, limitless speed and +almost no cost as long as he stays away from planet pulls. His house +is in the sky, and when he steps out of it he can fly like a bird. And +food. To grow food there is sunlight Earth never dreamed of. For heat +and power there is sunlight to focus. Space is flooded with heat, +irradiated with power—</p> + +<p>"It's not child's play taming it, and those on the ground don't see it +yet. But the next step of mankind is out into space, and it's never +coming back."</p> + +<p>Pierce, sitting in one of the shock tank armchairs, asked, "What part +do you have in this?"</p> + +<p>Bryce looked at him with a feeling almost of surprise, as if he had +been called back from a long distance. "Me?" he laughed, a little awed +by the immensity of the goal, and the ease of it.... "First President +of the Belt and political boss for life. That's enough."</p> + +<p>Enough to hold the solar system in the palm of his hand, if he chose. +He who rules space, rules the planets. It was the first time he had +ever mentioned his goal to anyone.</p> + +<p>Roy Pierce asked, "What do I do about this 'friend' of yours who lays +traps?"</p> + +<p>The last attack had settled the question of who was behind the other +attacks, and who had told Beldman, but Orillo would still be a useful +pawn. All that was necessary was to evade his attempts at murder for a +month or so until partnership tied them too close for murder.</p> + +<p>Bryce explained some of that to Pierce, setting up a chess board to +pass away the time until they arrived back at Moonbase City.</p> + +<p>"What's my next assignment?" Pierce asked, when they were several +moves into the game.</p> + +<p>Bryce recalled a danger he had made no move to guard against. "The +Board hired a psychologist, a mind hunter, to find out who's doing the +undermining. He's one of the Manoba group. Remember the name, look it +up and find out what their methods are, how to recognize them, and +report back what to do about it."</p> + +<p>"I'll take care of him," Roy Pierce said absently, moving his knight +to threaten Bryce's bishop.</p> + +<p>"No unnecessary trouble. Remember I have to keep my name clean." Bryce +moved a pawn one step to cover the bishop and leave room for his other +bishop to menace the knight.</p> + +<p>"I'll be careful. There'll be no publicity. He won't get hurt," +Pierce said, moving the knight into Bryce's second line where it +threatened the king and a cornered castle. "Check." And he added, as +if apologizing for having delayed his move, "I don't like to move +until I'm sure what's going on."</p> + +<p>The remark didn't seem to be suited to the game, as if he had referred +to something else.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div> +<p>t was during dinner on the Moon that he and Pierce loosened up for +the first time since the ambush. Pierce had been comparatively silent +since the chess game on the trip back and Bryce too, whether in +sympathy with him or in a naturally parallel mood, had little to say. +But now the tension had diffused and, with the stimulus of aromatic +food, they climbed out of their depression of emotional solemnity.</p> + +<p>The decorations of the dining room were lush. While they ate, the +materialism of their lives was reinforced. From silvered-and-tapestried +wall to wall there was life here, low-keyed with excitement in the blend +of subdued talk and the shifting artistry of lights and music. Their table +was almost in the center of the islands of tables and potted trees, and +around them were the diners, their voices washing up at them both, +inviting them with gentle tugs to surrender their resistance, beckoning +them into the sea of simple pleasures.</p> + +<p>"We owe ourselves some fun, Bryce."</p> + +<p>At Pierce's words, Bryce sharpened his eyes on the face across the +table. There was a touch of seriousness in those words; more like a +statement than a suggestion.</p> + +<p>Pierce smiled wryly and took a vial out of his pocket and poured it +into his drink. He spun the empty bottle between thumb and fingers.</p> + +<p>"We owe ourselves some fun," Pierce repeated. "We've nothing on the +fire tonight, nothing to do that's crucial. It's a good night to +experiment."</p> + +<p>The warm voice waves lapping at Bryce's mind suddenly receded and left +a chill. With instinctive wariness he thought of hypnotics and +single-shot addictors.</p> + +<p>Pierce couldn't have missed the emotionless freeze on the other's +face. Still twirling the vial casually, he began to explain. It was a +new drug, he said, found being used by a tribe in Central Africa. +"I've heard of it for some time and what you mentioned a little while +back reminded me of it."</p> + +<p>Bryce caught the hidden reference. Central Africa—and the Manoba +group. So Pierce had not dismissed the mind hunter from his thoughts +as a problem to be easily dealt with.</p> + +<p>"It's still in the testing stage," Pierce added. "But some of it is +circulating among medical students. The tests have interesting +effects. And, as I say, tonight's a good night to experiment, it's +called B'nyab i'io."</p> + +<p>The chill in Bryce's head and spine was thawing out. "You're not +conning me?" He said it with a grin, but there was an edge to the +question which demanded an answer.</p> + +<p>Pierce gave it to him, for a brief moment deadly serious. "You +couldn't get addicted if you swam in it."</p> + +<p>Bryce believed him. He stared at the glass. "What does it do to the +I.Q.? We've got to collect some information here and there this +evening. I want to be able to read and talk." He smiled crookedly. "No +worse than usual, that is."</p> + +<p>"Either raises the I.Q. or leaves it alone."</p> + +<p>"What's the effect?"</p> + +<p>"It affects different people different ways. After hearing the reports +I'd like to see how it hits us." Pierce pushed it towards him, +grinning. "Leave half for me."</p> + +<p>Bryce's wary thoughts touched poison and immunity and murder, but +inwardly he began to scoff at his own habits of suspicion. However, +before he could reach for the glass, Pierce had given a short snort as +though in recognition of his presumptuousness and drank his own share +first.</p> + +<p>Then Bryce raised the cold glass to his lips.</p> + +<p>As he put it down he could feel the change beginning to spread through +his blood, warming and relaxing, bringing closer the memories of +pleasure and good times. The restaurant was now completely seductive, +with the surf of voices pleasant in his ears, calling to him to join +the world and its offers of uncomplicated pleasures. He felt himself +blending with the ethereal background mixture of light and sound.</p> + +<p>"I like this," he decided.</p> + +<p>"We should take notes." Pierce was smiling as he stuffed the empty +vial back in his pocket.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div> +<p>he next day Bryce looked back on that evening with pleasure. Everyone +had been remarkably pleasant, friendly and considerate, and Pierce had +always had the right friendly word and gesture to reward them, +speaking for Bryce, knowing his way around the cities of the Moon to +the right places for the information they sought, always speaking for +Bryce Carter, his employer, getting him the things he wanted, giving +the orders he wanted to give before Bryce had even fully realized that +he wanted them. Bryce had needed to say nothing the whole time except +"Right. That's it," and everything went as he wanted it.</p> + +<p>"A perfect left hand man," he smiled, stretching, and turned the +polarization dial to let in the sunlight.</p> + +<p>The telephone rang. He picked it up and the desk clerk said in a +deferentially hushed voice, "Eight o'clock, Mister Carter."</p> + +<p>For some reason the hushed voice struck him as funny. "Thanks, I'm +up." He hung up and stretched again. It was soothing to have someone +solicitous that he arose on time, if only a hotel. The hotel had given +him a lot of good service. He felt suddenly grateful for all the +pleasures and luxuries and small services they surrounded him with. It +was a good place. He was feeling good that morning. Maybe because the +sun was so bright....</p> + +<p>He liked the look of the people passing in the lobby as Pierce joined +him, and he liked the look of the passengers in the tube trains on the +way to the office. They all looked more friendly. And as he pushed +through the second glass door into his offices he liked the clean +shine of the glass and the rich blended colors and soft rugs and gray +textured desks and the soft efficient hum of work in progress.</p> + +<p>Bryce usually passed Kesby's office with a businesslike nod, but +Pierce smiled in, stopping for an instant with Bryce. "Good morning, +Kesby. We're glad to see you." It was true enough and expressed what +he felt.</p> + +<p>Bryce exchanged a grin with Kesby at the boy's insolence and then went +on into his office.</p> + +<p>It was a good day.</p> + +<p>It was a good day for what he had to do.</p> + +<p>In the luxury of his inner office he sank into the deepest, softest +chair, letting his cousin-from-Montehedo sort the mail, agreeing with +the boy's suggestions for action or sometimes issuing his own +instructions, keeping only half his mind on the routine day's +business, relying on Pierce, and concentrating the other half on the +deed to be done. The plan was set in his mind but he had changes to +make.</p> + +<p>He was barely conscious of the time slipping by as he lay, rarely +moving, in his chair, while Pierce worked at top speed.</p> + +<p>By one o'clock the deck was cleared for action.</p> + +<p>Bryce stood up, stretched, and checked his watch again. It was 1304 +hours. A telephone call was scheduled in about another hour, and five +more successively about a half hour apart.</p> + +<p>"Order us some lunch, Pierce, before I lift the drawbridge."</p> + +<p>The food came in as he was instructing his staff to leave them +undisturbed for the rest of the afternoon.</p> + +<p>By the time they had finished eating, their isolation was complete. +The office was a command post now, with only the slender, unattended +telephone wires connecting them with the outside worlds.</p> + +<p>Bryce moved over behind his desk. He drew the telephone toward him and +dialed a number. Somewhere, in the locked safe, the phone rang.</p> + +<p>From the case he took a toy dial phone. Pierce's eyes were on it, his +eyebrows lifted quizzically, but Bryce offered no explanation. The boy +was due for a series of surprises. And when it was over, he would know +everything without any explanations, and too late to interfere.</p> + +<p>"Hi Al," Bryce said to the recorded "Yeah?" at the other end. He +dialed a number on the toy dial, the one receiver against the other's +back. After the usual ritual, Bryce said, "Hello George, how's +everything going?"</p> + +<p>This is it, Bryce thought. This was the first part of the final blow +to UT. And the only instrument he needed in his delightfully simple +method was a telephone. Originally he had planned six brief warning +calls to the six key numbers of the ground organization. He would tell +them to refuse to take anything from the hands of the UT branch, and +break contact with them immediately after accepting cash for +miscellaneous items. That would set the stage.</p> + +<p>The police trap would close on all members of the UT branch of the +organization while they were encumbered with a maximum of +incriminating objects to dispose of in too little time. Then would +come his anonymous tip to the police. He'd inform them that certain +employees of UT in a few listed cities would be found to be smuggling +in large quantities of drugs. The thing would be so simple. And the +whole works would blow up with the efficiency of the calculated +explosion of nuclear reaction.</p> + +<p>That had been his original plan.</p> + +<p>But things would be different now. The morning in the easy chair had +changed his approach. The newer, more elaborate program, still +remarkably simple, would bring down the whole structure within UT +without the help of the police, but by himself alone, planning it, +initiating it, executing it with no one's help. Not even Pierce's.</p> + +<p>He heard himself saying:</p> + +<p>"This is 'Hello George.' Listen to me and don't interrupt.</p> + +<p>"Somebody has talked. I've been betrayed myself. Get that? Hello +George is washed up. Right now the cops are tapping this line. It +doesn't make any difference to me, now. But it does to you. This is an +open warning from Hello George to you. Spread the word. I'll keep +making calls until they break in on me and cut this line.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile, spread the word. Break connections with me and the whole +organization. Get out of range before the trap closes. But pass on +this warning first.</p> + +<p>"I'll hold out against questioning a short time. The police will get +me eventually, of course. And when they do they'll pump me dry. +They'll get names and addresses. The whole works will get grabbed, +unless you move fast. Spread the word."</p> + +<p>Bryce paused and winked at Pierce who was standing at his elbow, "Any +questions? Yes, I'm sure. Of course I'm sure. Any other questions? +Good luck, Okay."</p> + +<p>He hung up.</p> + +<p>As Caesar once said, the dice were rolling.</p> + +<p>Pierce, beside him through it all, simply stood there, his eyes wide +and his face sharp with curiosity and incredulity, his body twitching +now and then from the infection of the excitement which rippled over +the room. That excitement had been there, though Bryce had not +permitted himself to indulge in it in any visible way. He had showed +Pierce a new facet to his operations, one which Pierce could not +anticipate immediately, one in which only he, Bryce, could make the +snap decisions and evaluate the immediate responses demanded of him.</p> + +<p>That was with the first call.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w.jpg" alt="W" width="48" height="40" /></div> +<p>ith the second one Pierce began to contribute, rising to the occasion +as he had so often and quickly done in the past. He began pacing up +and down between calls, smoking furiously and laughing under his +breath.</p> + +<p>"Tell 'em the police are breaking down the door," he suggested during +the third call. "Say you're hypnoed to hold out against questioning +five days at the most, two hours more likely."</p> + +<p>His suggestions were a howl. Bryce repeated them into the phone with +counterfeit desperation and was rewarded by the sounds of panic at the +other end. He and Pierce chortled over the frantic queries and +exclamations from the victim. The whole thing, succinct and pointed +and with the dramatic power of simplicity, was one super practical +joke which would set the entire solar system scurrying around for the +next few weeks.</p> + +<p>The ramifications would be endless. Persons would vanish abruptly and +take up new names and identities in the obscure countries, others +would draw out their heavy savings and take the first rocket out from +Earth. There would be a new influx of refugees to the Belt, new +settlers to be honest farmers and factory workers and repair men.</p> + +<p>Yes, the situation was dramatic.</p> + +<p>The day was a good day.</p> + +<p>But as Bryce hung up on the last call, a depressing sense of calamity, +unsettlingly anti-climatic, began to press down on him. Pierce was +talking about plans for the next week with an enthusiasm which should +have been completely contagious.</p> + +<p>But there was something wrong. There was something wrong.</p> + +<p>What was it?</p> + +<p>Bryce felt Pierce's enthusiasm catch at him and start to sweep him +away. He savored the pleased glow produced by the shattering changes +he had managed to cram into one day. With six telephone calls he had +broken the drug ring completely and forever, broken it so completely +that no member of it would ever have dealings with any member of it +again. All of them were out of business, fleeing with the imaginary +hounds of the law baying at their heels.</p> + +<p>He smiled at the thought.</p> + +<p>And then his smile faded for some strange reason and he ceased +listening to Pierce for a moment, looked away and ceased listening, +for hearing Pierce just then distracted oddly from the clarity of his +thinking. He wanted to review what he had just done.</p> + +<p>What was wrong?</p> + +<p>What?</p> + +<p>He struggled with a mounting confusion, the desk top and telephones +blurring as he tried to concentrate with desperate effort.</p> + +<p>Unexpectedly the question sprang into focus. It was as if the room +turned inside out, the day turned upside down.</p> + +<p>He had smashed himself—not UT!</p> + +<p>Why?</p> + +<p>Why had he made those calls—changed his plans—and made those calls?</p> + +<p>With the most perfect and terrible clarity he saw the results of what +he had done. The organization destroyed. The contacts he had made +fifteen years ago as an anonymous young dock hand, contacts that as +Bryce Carter he could never make again—vanishing—merging with the +great mass of the public—becoming gray unknown figures. The building +of years melting like a sugar castle melts into the tide—the +invisible army that had obeyed his sourceless voice without being able +to blackmail or rebel, the perfectly balanced tool in his hands that +could be used for the bribing of venal politicians, with a limitless +fund for the bribery, the growing secret control of the most venal of +the political machines of Earth, that by the time he needed it it +would have been an irresistible weapon in his hand for the single +swift political blow that would rip the Belt from Earth control, and +give it a seat on the Assembly of the Federated Nations, and mastery +of the solar system—</p> + +<p>But as he sat there the organization dissolved.</p> + +<p>He grasped the phone, but there was nobody to call now, no one would +answer. He could never reach them again.</p> + +<p>This was sanity now, but what had it been before when he was +cheerfully destroying his future? It seemed to him that there were two +halves to his brain, each wanting different things. For a moment the +one that had controlled the day was gone, and he was sane again, but +how long would that moment last? What sign had there been when it took +control? Would he know it when it came again?</p> + +<p>He remembered that in the tube train that morning he and Pierce had +had a half joking argument about the best short-and-merry life. One of +the happy ones on the list had been the INC agent, because they spent +so much of their lives working into smuggling gangs that they had all +the pleasures and profits of being a crook and an honest man too. Was +that where he had slipped his cog?</p> + +<p>Looking back on the things he had done that day he saw that much of it +had fitted an abstract pattern of justice, as if he had been thinking +of himself as an INC man. Or as if—</p> + +<p>He thought of the things he had seen in his childhood that they had +called zombies, and jeered at and tormented without fear of any +retaliation or vengeance from their gray-faced victims. Imprisoned +men—they looked normal—but they had been mentally imprisoned. +Law-zombies, memorizing and following laws and being honest with a +simple and terrifying literalness.</p> + +<p>He had not known that he had any capacity for terror.</p> + +<p>Bryce Carter. He had his name, his identity and his memory, and they +were his own. Sometimes he had had nothing else, only the pride and +strength of knowing his identity, that it was his and stronger than +others, just as his hands were stronger, a thing they couldn't take +from him.</p> + +<p><i>Could they?</i> There was a nightmare he had had more than once, that he +remembered suddenly for the first time, with all its atmosphere of +childish strangeness. The cop psychos were after him. He was trapped +in a big room with lights and they had his head open and were chasing +him around inside his head somehow, trying to catch him, and kill him, +the him that lived in his mind.</p> + +<p>Would he know if it was gone?</p> + +<p>The black sharp-edged shadows of the crater walls were drawing across +the landing plain outside, bringing to a close the two weeks of +daylight, and the reflected sunlight was dimming in the room. He could +hear the rumble of a heavy ship of a cargo fleet lowering in to a +landing.</p> + +<p>His assistant was sitting quietly on the edge of the desk as he had +been for some time, motionlessly watching the thin plume of smoke that +rose from a cigarette in his hand. He was as still as if he were +listening for some subtle sound far away. Rocket jets flashed an +orange glow through the venetian blinds and fell in stripes of orange +light across the dark young face. The brief rumble of a rocket +take-off came, transmitted through the ground and the building. Smoke +curling up from the cigarette was the only motion.</p> + +<p>"Roy, is Pierce your real name?"</p> + +<p>The light flashed and faded in bars of orange across the young face he +had thought was like his own, the boy he had thought had come from Pop +Yak. The quick deep rumble of sound came and faded in the walls around +them. A fleeting smile touched the face, and the dark eyes rested on +his for a moment as Roy Pierce gave the information casually as if it +were any other information, answering the question that had been +meant. "It is my mother's name. We always take our mother's names. I +am a Manoba—a Manoba of Jaracho."</p> + + +<h2>IX</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_l.jpg" alt="I" width="33" height="40" /></div> +<p>ooking into Bryce's face he slid to his feet slowly, ground out the +stub of his cigarette and stood before the desk.</p> + +<p>Bryce took out his gun and held it where Pierce could see it. "Are +Manobas ever shot?" It was a heavy little gun, his maggy, its barrel +sleek and rounded, the heavy metal warm from being worn close to the +skin.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes. It's a natural enough reaction."</p> + +<p>It was a spaceworthy gun with adjustable velocity for driving through +padded suits and pressure suits. The velocity was set high, but it +would be inartistic to blow a large hole through a psychotherapist. +Bryce turned the dial down slowly, watching him.</p> + +<p>"Do the professional ethics of privacy and non-publicity cover this +kind of situation?"</p> + +<p>Pierce was smiling slightly with a touch of bitter humor. "It's +undiplomatic to tell you that, but yes, the contingency is covered. +There is nothing to connect myself with you as a case in any records, +nor anything to identify me as a member of the Manoba group contracted +by your company. The ethic of privacy is allowed to have no exceptions +for the family's record."</p> + +<p>A cool curiosity held him. "Tell me—when you saw that I was beginning +to think, why didn't you just needle me down for a short nap and +leave?"</p> + +<p>The smile remained. "I am supposed to control the shock of +realization, and make sure that it is assimilated without damage to +the subject." His dark expressionless eyes met Bryce's, and Bryce felt +the impact of them, and realized for the first time that there was the +same slight bitter off-hand smile on his own lips, and inwardly the +quiet ironical mood with the still clarity of a deep pool. His own +mood? He hefted the gun in his hand, feeling its weight and balance. +"You could have done that over the televiewer," he pointed out +dispassionately. "What is the average mortality, do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Not high. It is only inexperience that is dangerous. If one can get +through one's first three or four cases, it's safe enough."</p> + +<p>Looking back over the past days it was quite clear that Pierce had +control over his emotions. Any emotion Pierce chose him to feel he +would feel. It remained to be seen how much that could influence what +he was going to do. The dark-skinned young man stood before the desk +casually and answered questions with a slight restrained smile that +set the wry irony of both their minds.</p> + +<p>A man does what he wants. That is freedom, but what he wanted could be +controlled apparently. A man <i>is</i> what he wants. But what he wanted +could be changed. How easy had it been to change him. Bryce tried +himself with a thought of the power and glory of rule, the reign and +mastery of space—a goal that had warmed his thoughts for many years.</p> + +<p>He didn't want it.</p> + +<p>There was a numbness where there should have been emotion, and all he +could feel for his loss was the resignation and the faint bitter humor +permitted him by Pierce's smile. Watching that smile he shifted the +heavy little gun in his hand, turning it over casually, feeling its +familiar weight and the texture of its surfaces.</p> + +<p>He spoke gently. "If you don't mind my asking, have you passed through +your first three cases yet?"</p> + +<p>"You are my first," said Roy Pierce, whom he had trusted. "I'm afraid +I was clumsy."</p> + +<p>"Oh—you did all right." Bryce shot him then, placing the bullet +carefully in the pit of his stomach where it would hurt. That was for +doing well. For justice. No man has the right to meddle in another +man's mind.</p> + +<p>Pierce had been starting to speak. He swayed back a half step with a +flicker of change crossing his face then stood steady and smiling +again. That brief grimace touched Bryce's nerves with a sensation that +was like the jangle of something heavy dropped inside a piano, a sound +he had heard once. But the numbness did not lift from his feelings. He +was still smiling. The third bullet would be between the eyes.</p> + +<p>The words were low and rapid but clear.</p> + +<p>Bryce did not listen. "This is for doing a good job," he said, +overriding the other voice with his own, and pulled the trigger again, +placing the slug slightly lower this time, in the belly, where if it +entangled in one of the spinal plexus it could hurt past belief. +Pierce swayed slightly. His face went to the clay-blue color that +comes to dark-skinned races when they pale. Bleeding inside somewhere, +and already dead unless he were given help, Bryce figured.</p> + +<p>For a moment Bryce saw something like effort in the dark unreadable +eyes. Then suddenly Pierce smiled, his young face disarmingly innocent +and merry. "Oh, come on, Bryce, it's not that serious. Be a good +sport. You don't want to—"</p> + +<p>Suddenly Bryce saw the situation as the sheerest humor, a sort of +lunatic farce for the laughter of some cosmic joker. He swung the +gunsights up towards the smiling face. Amusement bubbled in his blood +and he heard himself laugh—heard it with a grim secondary amusement.</p> + +<p>"The joke's on you," he said, and pulled the trigger, then laughed +again. The joke was on him.</p> + +<p>He had missed. He had missed at a distance of three feet. Yet his hand +was rock-steady. Pierce's control had him. His laughter stopped as the +humor in Pierce's attitude faded down again to the small wry smile +that had been there from the beginning.</p> + +<p>Bryce had not lost. He had only to wait a little and he had won. +Unless Pierce could use his control to force him to call help. He set +himself to resist and not to listen. There was not long to go. The +expressionless dark eyes that held his were beginning to widen +slightly in an effort of sight that meant that a private darkness was +closing in on the psychotherapist. The rumble of distant rockets +seemed louder, covering his fading voice. "It's your choice, Bryce. I +give it to you. You won't want this later—Bryce—but don't—hunger to +undo. It is payment enough for all—times like this—that you +change—and do not—want—them any—again—" Pierce pulled in a +strangling breath, swaying more visibly. "Gun," he whispered, reaching +out in Bryce's direction, his eyes going sightless.</p> + +<p>Bryce handed him the magnomatic, and watched as Pierce fumbled his +hands over it, putting his prints on it blindly, his knees bending.</p> + +<p>When he fell, Bryce picked up the phone and called Emergency. The +emergency squad would be cruising around in the halls somewhere +nearby, looking for the source of the three radio notes that had told +them that a gun was fired.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t1.jpg" alt="T" width="49" height="40" /></div> +<p>hat was the last I saw of him," the young man stopped talking and +looked pleased with himself.</p> + +<p>Donahue drained his drink irritably and put it on the bar that had +been set up on the ceiling when the Gs went off. It clung +magnetically. "Make it the same, please." He turned to Roy Pierce, +floating beside him. "Stop needling me, man, finish the story. The way +you tell it, I don't know what you did, how you did it, or even +whether you died or not."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I died," said Roy Pierce. "But they revived me," he added.</p> + +<p>"Good! I'm glad to hear that!" said Donahue more cheerfully, wondering +suddenly just how extensively he was being kidded. "For a moment +there you had me worried. Now explain about this treatment."</p> + +<p>"It's called soul eating," explained the dark-skinned, straight-haired +boy, "I don't think you could do it."</p> + +<p>Donahue thought that information over carefully. "Maybe not. How's it +done?"</p> + +<p>"In the tribes of my people the soul is supposed to be an invisible +double who walks at your side, protecting you and speaking silently to +your mind. Its face is the face that looks out of mirrors and up from +pools at you, and the shadow that walks on the ground beside you. +Evildoers, after they had spoken to a Manoba, would say that their +reflections were gone. Our family was called The Eaters of Souls, and +all the tribes were afraid of us for nine hundred miles around."</p> + +<p>"So am I," said Donahue compactly. "As my Yiddish grandmother on my +mother's side would say, it sounds from werewolves."</p> + +<p>"I can explain it."</p> + +<p>"No magic?"</p> + +<p>"Look," said the youth tersely, "Do I want to get kicked out of the +FNMA? What if I had sat in a jungle circle loaded to the ears with +herbs and spells, with the drums of my cousins throbbing around me, +and learned the best and subtlest ways of my technique back in time +looking through the eyes of my great grandfather, or conversing with +his ghost. Do you think I would say so?"</p> + +<p>"No," Donahue admitted. He edged away a little.</p> + +<p>The youth spoke gloomily. "Rapport and intensified empathy is +something you learn by exposing yourself to mirrors. The technique is +published, known and accepted among psychologists, but most of them +just don't try. It backfires too easily, and it takes too high a level +of skill. It originated with my family." The youth spoke even more +gloomily. "What I do is obvious enough if I make it so. It's simply +prior mimicry. I watch the trend of what goes on in his thoughts, and +express approximately what he is feeling and thinking a little before +he does. So that presently, subconsciously he is depending on me to +tell him what he thinks and how he feels.</p> + +<p>"I was his mirror, his prior mirror. I am a clear, expressive +underplaying actor as an actor, and each shade of reaction is separate +and unmistakable. The subconscious is not rational, but it generalizes +from regularities that the conscious mind never has the subtlety to +notice. It saw me consistently representing its own internal +reactions, hour after hour in every situation more clearly than Bryce +ever saw himself express anything in a mirror, and more steadily than +he ever saw any mirror. The subconscious then associated the inside +emotion with the corresponding outside image for each one. I became +Bryce's subconscious self image. When he thinks of doing anything, the +image in the imagination that does it is not himself, it is me. This +can cause considerable mental confusion."</p> + +<p>"It should!" Donahue agreed fervently.</p> + +<p>"I put him in new places and situations where he was unsure and I was +sure, so that when I diverged from mirroring him, he gave me the lead +and mirrored me. One of us had to be the originator and the other the +reflection, but now it was reversed. He did not fight it +subconsciously because the results were pleasant. I kept the lead and +led him a mental dance through thoughts and reactions he had never had +before, in a personality pattern completely foreign to his own, one +that I wanted him to have. I hadn't been hired for that, but I had +time to pass before I could untangle that UT problem, and I wanted to +do it for him. The mirror link was complete the first day, but I'm +afraid the extra days made it indelible. He'll always be me in his +mind, and mirrors will never look right to him."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i1.jpg" alt="I" width="35" height="40" /></div> + +<p>t's so simple, it's obvious," said Donahue with disappointment. "It +doesn't sound like magic to me."</p> + +<p>The youth was thoughtful, frowning. "Sometimes it doesn't to me +either. I wonder if the ghost of my grandfather was telling me the +right—"</p> + +<p>"Forget the ghost of your grandfather," Donahue interrupted hastily. +On his few space trips he could never get used to this business of +floating eerily around in the air, and it seemed a poor time to talk +about ghosts. "What about Bryce Carter. What became of him? You know," +he said defiantly, "I like his plans for organizing the Belt and +breaking UT. And, come to think of it, if I had been there when you +were interfering with <i>that</i>, I think I would have shot you myself."</p> + +<p>"UT had only hired me to find the organizer of the smuggling ring and +persuade him to disband his organization in UT. I had done that. So +the third day, when I could walk, I left the hospital and went back to +Earth, and collected my fee for a job done. Many people had vanished +suddenly from their payrolls, and the crime statistics in some cities +had shown a startling lull. They knew I had done it, and so they paid +and were grateful." The dark youth shrugged. "I didn't feel I had to +tell them about Orillo. He tipped the police and started a rumor, and +there was evidence enough in the crime statistics of the months +before, when they were correlated with the distribution of branches of +Union Transport, though there was nothing to point at anyone in +particular except the ones who had disappeared."</p> + +<p>Donahue remembered. "Sure that's that investigation of transportation +monopolies that raised such a stink last year. I saw part of it in +Congress."</p> + +<p>Pierce handed him a travel folder. Gaudily illustrated, it advertised +the advantages of the C&O lines for space tourists. "Carter and +Orillo."</p> + +<p>Donahue looked up, puzzled, "But this is the next step in what he +planned. I thought you changed him."</p> + +<p>"Mahatma Gandhi would have followed out those plans," Pierce said with +a touch of grimness. "As you pointed out, they are attractive. But I +changed him. I won't give you personality dynamics, but if you want a +list of changes—He's married to Sheila Wesley, that's one change. And +instead of going home nights he roisters around in bars and +restaurants, talking to everybody, listening to everybody, liking them +all and enthusiastically making friends in carload lots. That's +another change. He doesn't look into mirrors because they make him +feel cross-eyed. That's because he unconsciously expects to see me in +the mirror. And he will organize the Belt and be president as he +planned. I won't stop him in that. The difference will be that he +won't want the power he'll get." Pierce said grimly, "A power-lusting +man can never be trusted with power: he goes megalomaniacal. Carter +was already halfway there. But he's safe from that now. He's going to +be given plenty of power, and see it only as responsibility, and not +want it. That's the only safe kind of man to have in a powerful +position."</p> + +<p>"That—" said Donahue with great earnestness, "—is like sending a +poor damned soul to Kismetic paradise as a eunuch. You psychologists +are all complete sadists," he said lifting his drink. "I suppose +you've put something in my drink?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely nothing," Roy Pierce assured him, grinning. "Funny thing +was, when I got back to Earth that time, <i>I</i> kept feeling cross-eyed +when I looked into a mirror. And my friends said I was not myself. If +I was not myself, I knew I must still be Bryce Carter. Things had +seemed different, and they had warned me that the technique sometimes +backfired when I was learning. So I called my uncle Mordand on the +televiewer—he's the head of the family, and he lives in an estate in +the jungle—and he—"</p> + +<p>Donahue was fascinated again.</p> + +<p>There was a different approach for each case, Pierce had found. It was +not ordinarily ethical to discuss any case history, but he knew with +great surety that Donahue could be trusted not to repeat what he was +being told. The only reason there wasn't something extra in his +current drink was because there had been something in the last drink.</p> + +<p>This was case five.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Man Who Staked the Stars, by Charles Dye + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO STAKED THE STARS *** + +***** This file should be named 31356-h.htm or 31356-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/3/5/31356/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man Who Staked the Stars + +Author: Charles Dye + +Release Date: February 22, 2010 [EBook #31356] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO STAKED THE STARS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Planet Stories July 1952. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on + this publication was renewed. + + + [Illustration] + + + THE MAN WHO STAKED THE STARS + + + By CHARLES DYE + + + _Bryce Carter could afford a smug smile. For hadn't he risen + gloriously from Thieves Row to director of famed U.T.? Was + not Earth, Moon, and all the Belt, at this very moment + awaiting his command for the grand coup? And wasn't his + cousin-from-Montehedo a star-sent help?_ + + * * * * * + + + + +"What do I do for a living?" repeated the slim dark-skinned young man +in the next seat of the Earth-Moon liner. "I'm a witch doctor," he +answered with complete sincerity. + +"What do you do? I mean, what do they hire you for?" asked Donahue +with understandable confusion and a touch of nervousness. + +[Illustration: _Bracing themselves, Bryce and Pierce gave the body a +combined strong shove toward Earth. Two gone._] + +"I'm registered as a psychotherapist," said the dark-skinned young +man. He looked too young to be practicing a profession, barely +nineteen, but that could be merely a sign of talent, Donahue +reflected. The new teaching and testing methods graduated them young. + +"I know I am a witch doctor because my grandfather and his father and +his father's father were witch doctors and I learned a special +technique from my uncles who are registered therapists with medical +degrees like mine. But the technique is not the one you find in the +books, it is ... unusual. They don't say where they learned it but +it's not hard to guess." The dark youth shrugged cheerfully. "So--I'm +a witch doctor." + +"That's an interesting thought," said Donahue. It would be a long +three day trip to the Moon and he had expected to be bored, but this +conversation was not boring. "What do you do?" he again asked. +"Specifically." Donahue had rugged features, a dark tan and +attractively sun-bleached hair worn a little too long. He exuded a +sort of rough charm which branded him one of the class of politicians, +and he knew how to draw people out, so now he settled himself more +comfortably for an extended spell of listening. "Tell me more and join +me in a drink." He signalled the hostess and continued with the right +mixture of admiring interest and condescending scepticism. "You don't +chant spells and hire ghosts, do you?" + +"Not exactly." The dark innocent looking young face smiled with a +cheerful flash of white teeth. "I'll tell you what I did to a man, a +man named Bryce Carter." + + * * * * * + +A group of men sat in a skyscraper at Cape Hatteras, with their table +running parallel to a huge floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the +clouded sky and gray waves of the Atlantic. They were the respected +directors of Union Transport, and, like most men of high position, +they had a keen sense of self-preservation and a knowledge of ways and +means that included little in the way of scruples. + +The chairman rapped lightly. "Gentlemen, your attention please. I have +an announcement to make." + +The buzz of talk at the long table stopped and the fourteen men turned +their faces. The meeting had been called a full week early, and they +expected some emergency as an explanation. "A disturbing announcement, +I am afraid. Someone is using this corporation for illegal purposes." +The chairman's voice was mild and apologetic. + +Bryce Carter, second from the opposite end, was brought to a shock of +tense balanced alertness. How much did he know? He gave no sign of +emotion, but reached for a cigarette to cover any change in his +breathing, fumbling perhaps more than usual. + +The men at the long table waited, showing a variety of bored +expressions that never had any connection with their true reactions. +The chairman was a small, inconspicuous, sandy-haired man whose +ability they respected so deeply that they had elected him the +chairman to have him where they could watch him. They knew he was not +one to mention trifles, and there was a moment of silence. "All right, +John," said one, letting out his held breath and leaning back, "I'll +bite. What kind of illegal purposes?" + +"I don't know much," the small man apologized, "Only that the crime +rate has risen forty percent in the average of the cities served by +UT, and in Callastro City, Callastro, and Panama City, where we just +put in a spaceport, it more than doubled." + +"Funny coincidence," someone grunted. + +"Very funny," said another. "If the police notice it, and the public +hears of it--" + +There was no man there who would willingly have parted with his place +at that table, no one who was unaware that in fighting his way to a +place at that table he had seized some part of control of the destiny +of the solar system. + +UT--Union Transport, spread the meshes of its transportation service +through almost every city of Earth and the hamlets and roads and bus +and railroad and airlines between--and even to the few far ports where +mankind had found a toehold in space. But its existence was +precariously balanced on public trust. + +UT's unity from city to city and country to country, its spreading +growth had saved the public much discomfort and expense of overlapping +costs and transfers and confusion, and so the public, on the advice of +economists, grudgingly allowed UT to grow ever bigger. There was a +conservative movement to put all such outsize businesses under +government ownership as had been the trend in the last generation but +the economy was mushrooming too fast for the necessary neatness, and +the public rightly would not trust politicos in any operation too +confusing for them to be watched, and preferred to leave such +businesses to private operation, accepting the danger for the profit +of efficient and penurious operation, dividends and falling costs. + +But all these advantages were barely enough to buy UT's life from year +to year. It had grown too big. + +Its directors held power to make or break any city and the prosperity +of its inhabitants by mere small shifts in shipping fees, a decision +to put in a line, or a terminal, or a crossroad. The power was +indirectly recognized in the honors and higher offices, the free +entertainment and lavish privileges available to them from any chamber +of commerce and any political representative, lobbying discreetly for +a slight bias of choice that would place an airport or spaceport in +their district rather than another. + +Perhaps some of the directors used their position for personal +pleasure and advantage, but power used for the sake of controlling the +direction of growth of races and nations, power for its own sake was +the game which was played at that table, its members playing the game +of control against each other and the world for high stakes of greater +control, nursing behind their untelling faces who knows what +megalomaniac dreams of dominion. + +Yet they used their control discreetly, serving the public welfare and +keeping the public good-will. When it was possible. + +As always Bryce Carter sat relaxed, lazily smiling, his expression not +changing to his thoughts. + +"Who knows of this besides us?" someone asked. + +The chairman answered mildly. "It was a company statistician in the +publicity department who noticed it. He was looking for favorable +correlations, I believe." His pale blue eyes ranged across their +faces, touching Bryce Carter's face expressionlessly in passing. "I +requested that he tell no one else until I had investigated." He added +apologetically, "Commitments for drug addiction correlate too." + +That was worse news. "Narcotics investigators are no fools," someone +said thoughtfully. + + * * * * * + +Neiswanger, a thin orderly man near the head of the table, pressed his +fingertips together, frowning slightly. "I take it then that our +corporation is being used as a criminal means of large scale smuggling +of drugs, transport of criminals on false identification and transport +for resale of the goods resulting from their thefts. Is that correct?" +Neiswanger always liked to have things neatly listed. + +"I think so," said the chairman. + +"And you would say that the organization responsible is centered in +this corporation?" + +"It would seem likely, yes." + +The members of the board stirred uneasily, seeing a blast of +sensational headlines, investigations which would spread to their +private lives, themselves giving repetitive testimony to inquisitive +politicians in a glare of television lights while the Federated +Nations anti-cartel commission vivisected the UT giant into puny, +separate squabbling midgets. + +It was not an appealing prospect. + +"We'll have to stop it, of course," said a lean, blond man whose name +was Stout. He could be relied on to say the obvious and keep a +discussion driving to the point. "I understand we have a good +detective agency. If we put them on this with payment for speed and +silence--" + +"And when we know who is responsible," asked Neiswanger, "_Then_ what +do we do?" + +There was silence as they came to another full stop in thinking. +Turning culprits over to the police was out of the question, an +admission that such crimes had happened, and could happen again. +Firing the few detected could not impress the undetected and unfired +ones enough to discourage them from their profitable criminality. + +"Hire some killings," said the round faced Mr. Beldman, with +simplicity. + +The chairman laughed. "You are joking of course, Mr. Beldman." + +"Of course," said Mr. Beldman, and laughed barkingly, being well aware +of the permanent film record taken of all meetings. But he was not +joking. Nobody there was joking. + +The detective agency and the hired killers would be arranged for. + +Bryce Carter leaned back with the slight cynical smile on his lean +face that was his habitual expression. "Suppose the top man is high in +the company?" he suggested softly. "What then?" He did not need to +point out that the disappearance of such a man would be enough to +start a police and stock-holders investigation of the company in +itself. The implication was clear. Such a man could not be touched. + +"A hypnotist," suggested Raal. "Someone to make our top man back track +and clean up his own mess." + +"Illegal, dangerous and difficult, Mr. Raal," Irving said sourly. +"There are extremely severe penalties against any complicity in the +unsupervised use of hypnotism or hypnotic drugs, and their use against +the will of the subject is a major crime." + +"A circulating company psychologist would be legal," suggested the +lean blond man whose name was Stout. + +"We have over seventy-five of those on the company payrolls already +and I fail to see what use--" + +"One of the special high priced boys who iron out kinks in groups by +joining them and working with them for a while, like that Conference +Manager we had with us last year. Every member of the group that hires +one has to sign an application for treatment, and a legal release. +They are very quiet and don't broadcast what they do or who they +talked with, but they have a good record of results. The groups who +hire them report better work and easier work. We could use one as a +trouble shooter." + +"Are they a special organization?" someone asked. "I think I've heard +of them." + +"Yes, some sort of a union. I can't remember the name." + +"What would you expect them to do for us?" asked Irving. + +"I hear--" Stout said vaguely, his eyes wandering from face to face, +"that they have a special tough technique for hard case trouble +makers." For those who knew him, the vague look was a veil over some +thought which pleased him. Presumably he was thinking the thing which +had occurred to them all. + + * * * * * + +The culprit might be a member of the Board. There was a sudden +cheerful interest visible among them as they wondered who was quarry +for the "tough treatment." + +"I've heard of that," said Wan Lun, remembering. "It has been said +that they not only do not inform others of the fact of treatment but +frequently do not inform the man under treatment but seem to be only a +new friend until--poof." He smiled. "I think the guild name is Manoba. +The Manoba Group." + +Stout said, "They'll probably charge enough for the skill." + +Wan said, smiling, "I also heard some idle rumor that in a few such +cases discord within a group was alleviated by sudden suicide. +Presumably a psychologist can grow impatient and push a certain button +in the mind--" + +"Sounds like a good idea," Beldman said. "Do you think if we offered +this Manoba the right kind of money--" + +"You don't mean that, Mister Beldman," cut in the chairman +reprovingly. "You're joking again." + +"We're all great jokers," said Beldman, and laughed. + +Everyone laughed. + +"I move we vote a sum for the hiring of a Manoba psychologist." + +"Seconded, how about five hundred thousand?" + +"I don't know their fees," the chairman objected cautiously. + +"You can turn back any surplus. We stand to lose more than that by +several orders of magnitude. Spend it at your discretion." + +"Make it seven hundred thousand. Give him a little more room." + +"I so move." + +"Seconded." + +"Carry it to a vote." + +They slipped their hands under the table edge before their respective +seats, and each man ran his fingers over two buttons concealed there, +before him, chose between the _yes_ and the _no_ button and pushed +one, the choice of his fingers unseen by the others. + +Two numbers lit up on the small divided panel before the chairman. He +looked at them with his mild face expressionless. "Rejected by one +vote." + +Unanimity was the law on Board decisions, which by a natural law was +probably the reason why no love was lost among them, but this time +irritation was curbed by interest. They sat watching each other's +expressions with glances which seemed casual. Whose was the one vote? + +"I move that the vote be repeated and made open," someone said. + +"Seconded." + +"All in favor of the appropriation for the psychologist raise your +left hand," the chairman requested. + +They complied and looked at each other. All hands were up. + +"Carried on the second vote," the chairman said without apparent +interest. "For my own curiosity will the gentleman who voted nay on +the secret vote the first time speak up and explain his objections, +and why he changed his mind on the open vote?" + +There was silence a moment--Neiswanger looking at his neat +fingernails, Bryce Carter smoking, and smiling slightly as he always +smiled, Stout leaning back casually scanning his eyes from face to +face. Beldman lit a cigar and released a cloud of blue smoke with a +contented sigh. No one spoke. + +"Gentlemen," said the chairman. "It is entirely likely that the +culprit is among us." + +"Never mind the melodrama, John." Irving tapped the table impatiently. +"We've dealt with that. Let's get on to the next business." + + +II + +In the exit lounge at floor five Bryce Carter stopped a moment and +glanced at himself in the mirror. Thick neck, thick body--a physique +so evenly and heavily muscled that it looked fat until he moved. Atop +the thick body a lean face that he didn't like stared back at him. It +was darkly tanned, with underlying freckles that were almost black. +Years had passed since he had worked in space, but the space-tan +remained indelible. It was not a bland or pretty face. + +At the dinner, deep in discussion with Mr. Wan, he had been surprised +to find himself smiling at intervals, irrepressibly. He hoped it had +looked cordial, and not too much like a cat enjoying the company of +mice. + +They had no defense against him. The drugs organization could never be +traced to him. The connection was too well concealed. Even the +organization knew nothing about him. + +The only evidence which could make the connection was in his own mind. +The only witness against him was himself. He cast his mind back over +the meeting and dinner but there had been no slips past the first +shock of the chairman's announcement, and that had been unobserved by +anyone. The psychologist they had hired might perhaps get a betraying +flicker of expression from him in an interview, many well-trained +observers of human reactions could read expressions that keenly, but +the interviewing of all the Board by the psychologist was not likely. +The Directors of the Board were even now climbing into trains and +strato planes to scatter back to the far points of the earth. It would +take many days for an investigating psychologist to follow to +interview each one. He and Irving would be last on the list, for he +went to Moonbase City, and Irving to Luna City. + +He had weeks. + +He smiled, fastening bands in his cuffs that folded them tightly on +his wrists, zipping up his suitcoat and slipping on gloves. He looked +at himself again. Where he had been wearing a conservative dark silk +business suit with a short cape, he now seemed to be wearing a +tailored ski-suit with an odd cowl, or a pressure suit without boots +or helmet, which was what it was. Carrying the zipper up further would +have turned the cape to an airtight helmet bubble. + +Employes and executives passing in and out of the UT building gave the +clothes an approving and interested glance as they passed. The +justification by utility was obvious. It had cost money to have a +pressure suit designed light and flexible enough for comfortable wear, +but long ago he had grown irked by the repetitious business of +climbing in and out of clothes every time one stepped through a space +lock, while overcapes and hoods were needed stepping outside of any +temperate zone Earth building in winter. + +A pressure suit was completely independent of weather and regulated +its own internal heat. Since the suit had been designed the +manufacturer had begun to receive an increasing number of orders for +duplicates, and was now being put into mass production. Probably in +these five minutes he had just made many more sales for the +manufacturer. + +He was setting a style, he thought in pleased surprise, stepping out +of the building. The salt wind hit him with a blast of cold, and the +automatic thermostatic wiring in the suit countered with a wave of +warmth as he leaned into the wind and started to walk. The connection +between the Union Hotel and the building he had just left was an +arched sidewalk that curved between them, five stories above the sand +and surf. + +The hotel was an impressively towering building against the ragged +sky, and as he walked a gleam broke through from the hidden sunset and +spotlighted it and the low scudding clouds in a sudden glowing red. He +stopped and leaned against the balustrade to watch the red gleams +reflecting from the bay. Red and purple clouds fled by low overhead, +their colors changing as they moved. This was something a man couldn't +see in space or on the moon. + +But after a moment he couldn't fully enjoy it, because he was being +watched. The feeling was disturbing. + +Damn rubbernecks, he thought, and turned irritably, half hoping that +at least it would be an acquaintance or some pretty girls. + +But there was no one watching him. + +A few pedestrians walked by hurriedly because it was growing dark and +the view that they had come to enjoy was fading. The wind wrapped +their enveloping capes around them and made them all look abnormally +tall and columnar. + +It was darker. The sidewalk lights abruptly flicked on in a flood of +amber light that thickened the twilight beyond their circle to an +opaque purple curtain of darkness. + +He noticed a pedestrian walking slowly towards him from the direction +he had come. The figure approached more slowly than seemed natural, +with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets as though lost in +thought. + + * * * * * + +A trailer from the detective agency? It was too soon for that. If it +were arranged that every member of the Board be trailed, still it +could not have been arranged and begun so soon. + +[Illustration] + +Besides, there was something more deadly than that in the walking +man's indifference. + +A killer arranged by Beldman? It would be natural for Beldman or Stout +to take a chance and fight back the direct way. But there was no +evidence. How could either of them have decided who to blame or who to +fight? + +The few huge buildings that stood dark against the night sky were +being brightened now by lights going on in hundreds of windows. In +long slender spans between them stretched the aerial walks and the +necklaces of amber lights that outlined them. The wind blew colder +across the walks and the view of sea and sky that had been visible +from them now was blotted out by night. The walkers were going in. +There was small chance of sheltering himself in a crowd, or even of +keeping only one or two walkers between himself and the one who +followed him. + +At the first sight of the approaching figure he had instinctively +leaned back against the concrete railing and taken his gun from its +pocket holster, holding it lightly in his gloved hand. + +An aged couple and a vigorous middle-aged woman hurrying in the +opposite direction glanced at him without interest or alarm. His pose +was not menacing, and anyway most men with money enough to travel +carried hand arms. + +This was an indirect effect of a Federated Nations ruling that only +hand arms of a regulated deadliness be manufactured as the armament +of nations. The ruling had been carefully considered for other +secondary effects, for any nation growing over-centralized and +militaristic was likely to arm its citizens universally for greater +military power by numbers, and then suffer the natural consequences of +having armed their public opinion. + +An armed man need not vote to be counted, and once having learned that +lesson, the feeling that an armed man carried his bill of rights in +his pocket made this the first clause of the written and unwritten +constitutions of many suddenly democratic nations. "The right of the +yoemanry to carry arms shall not be abridged." They kept their guns. + +And with weapons instantly available to hot tempers, dueling came back +into custom in most places. + +All this had little effect on the large calm manufacturing countries +who had run the UN and now ran the FN, but it made easy their decision +that since, in space, policing is almost impossible, the citizens who +venture there must be armed to protect themselves. Thus, in spite of +the continued outcry of a minority of Christian moralists, a holster +pocket was now built into all space suits. + +Bryce had grown up in a famine country, an almost unpoliced area, and +weapons had been as familiar to his hands as fingers since he had +passed twelve. And when, as a steel-worker, he had been one of the +first settlers in the foundry towns of the Asteroid Belt, he had found +life no gentler there. But it was all right as far as he was +concerned. He had heard of safer and duller ways to live but had never +wanted them. Life as a moonbased transport manager had been a short +interval of nonviolence, five years of startling calm which he had not +yet grown accustomed to. + +The gun fitted into his hand as comfortably as his thumb, or as the +handshake of an old and trusted friend, but it was useless here. +Reluctantly he slipped it back into his pocket and began walking +again. A director of UT couldn't shoot people on intuition. + +He had barely stopped for a count of ten, and there was still distance +between them when he had turned, but the follower could be walking +faster now, narrowing the distance between them. + +If he had waited and fired, an inspection of the man's pockets could +have confirmed his judgment by the finding of an assassin's illegal +needle gun. That alone might be enough to satisfy the police if he +were still merely a spaceworker, but a Director of UT couldn't live +that casually. It would be difficult to explain his certainty to the +police, and still more difficult to explain to the newspapers. He +could not afford that sort of publicity. + +Bryce let out a soft curse and lengthened his stride. + +He had to wait for proof of the follower's intentions. And the only +proof would be to be attacked, and the first proof of that, since +needle guns are soundless and inconspicuous, would probably be a +curare-loaded needle in his back. + +After that the follower could inconspicuously drop his weapon over the +balustrade, its self-destroying mechanism set to melt it before it +reached the sands far below. + +However since the follower certainly would not openly run after him, +the most logical thing to do, Bryce decided, was to run to the hotel +as if he were in a hurry. The idea irritated him. + +He walked on, slowing perversely. It was irrational to walk, and he +knew it, but he walked, and the knowledge that it was irrational +irritated him further. The skin between his shoulder blades itched +meditatively in its own imaginative anticipation of an entering +needle. What good did it do him to be proud of his brains when he put +himself in a spot where he walked around like a target? + +He controlled a rising rage but he walked. + +The sky was totally dark now and there were only two or three couples +ahead on the slender concrete span and one old couple he had just +passed, so that they were between himself and the follower. But that +was no adequate screen. + +Far above soared the sky taxis. And now he wanted a taxi. He was +approaching a place where there was a hack stand. Just ahead, at the +midway point, where the upward curve of the sidewalk leveled off and +began to curve down, a narrow catwalk jutted into space with a small +landing platform at its end. "TAXI" a luminescent arrow glowed at him +directingly as he came abreast of it. + + * * * * * + +He walked rapidly out along the railed catwalk, making a perfect +target he knew, silhouetted against the glow. He cursed under his +breath, reaching the end of it. Here he made an even more perfect +target, with the single bright light that poured down brilliance on +the bench and landing platform spotlighting him against the darkness +of the night. The bench was thin iron grillwork. It offered no cover. + +He needed cover. He considered the white concrete pillar of the lamp, +put his hand on the railing and jumped up to sit on the railing +casually, a one hundred fifty foot fall behind him and the width of +the lamp post between him and the follower, who now was an unmoving +figure leaning against the railing of the sidewalk near where the +catwalk began. + +The sight of the insolently lounging figure did nothing to sooth his +irritation. This escape was not the way he wanted to deal with a +threat. There was an oddity in the man's waiting. The range was poor, +and he probably was not firing, although he would look as if he were +not in any case, but if he were not going to take this chance for his +murder attempt, why did he openly exhibit himself, arousing suspicion +and cutting off future chances? An innocent stroller or even a mere +trailer from the detective agency would have strolled on. + +Above came the nearing drone of a taxi which had spotted him in the +bright pool of light at the hack stand. + +There was something in the careless confidence of the follower's open +interest in him that raised his neck hair as no direct threat could +have, and filled the rumble of the night-hidden surf with obscure +menace. The man acted as if his job was over, clinched. + +Bryce reached the answer as the taxi floated down on hissing roter +blades and settled to the platform. Sliding down from the railing he +walked toward it, stiff-legged. The light was out inside it, and the +cabby did not climb out or attempt to open the door for him. Bryce +turned his head and looked back as if for a last glance at the +watching figure, grasping the door handle with his right hand as if +fumbling blindly. He was left handed. When the door was open a crack, +it stopped opening, and those inside saw the muzzle of a magnamatic in +his left hand looking through the crack at them. + +It's easier to catch wolves if you're disguised as a rabbit, Pop Yak +had told him once. He must have looked a complete sucker, starting to +climb into a dark cab with his head turned backward! + +"Don't move," Bryce said, some of his anger reaching his voice in a +biting rasp. Inside, the driver was frozen with his head turned enough +to see the glint of a muzzle behind his neck, and in the darkened far +corner of the back seat where there should have been no one there was +the pale blur of a face, and a hand holding something. Bryce knew that +there was no way a shot could reach him except through the shielding +steel door or the shatterproof window, and a man would hesitate before +shooting through glass when he was looking down the throat of Bryce's +gun. Bryce waited for him to think it over. + +The hand of the man in the back seat came into focus as his eyes +adjusted to the dark inside, and he could see that it was holding a +gun. The gun was not pointing at anything in particular. It was frozen +in mid-motion. The man had a half-smile frozen on his face, probably +in the way he had been smiling just before Bryce spoke. + +"Open your hand. Drop it." The glint of the gun disappeared, and there +was a faint thud from the floor. Bryce opened the door and slid into +the rear seat, watchful for motion, ready to shoot. "Face front!" They +faced front like two puppets, perhaps the uncontrollable rasp in his +voice was convincing. He still did not know whose men they were, or +why they had been hired. It would be no use questioning them for they +would not know either. He could guess who it was, a name came to mind, +but there was no way of checking up. This kind of business did not fit +well with the crucial balance of his plans for the next two weeks. "Be +careful," he said perhaps unnecessarily, "I'm nervous. Union Hotel +please." + +The short ride to the hotel was made in dead silence, with the man in +the opposite corner barely moving enough to blink his eyes. He was +middle-aged, with the resigned sagging lines to his face of ambition +disappointed, but he sat with a waiting stillness that Bryce +recognized as something to watch. There was probably another gun +within quick reach of that passive right hand. + +The roter drifted down to a landing space on the floodlighted landing +roof of the hotel and settled with a slight bump. "Don't move." The +clumsy careful business of opening the door backward with his right +hand and sliding out without taking his eyes from either of them was +tediously slow. + +Once out, he slammed the door briskly. "Take off." Not until the red +and green lights had faded into the distance did he turn away, pocket +his gun and walk into the wide doorway to the elevators. As he brushed +past the hotel detective standing in the doorway the detective was +reholstering a large size police pacifier. Apparently he had been +ready to impartially stun everyone concerned at the first sign of +trouble, which probably explained why those in the aircab had not +attempted any retaliation. The detective gave Bryce a cold stare as he +went by, probably in disapproval of guests waving weapons on hotel +premises. + + +III + +In his luxurious hotel room Bryce checked his watch. Eight o'clock. A +telephone call was scheduled for some time in the half hour. He filed +the question of who was behind the night's attack and picked up the +phone. The dial system was in automatic contact with any city in the +world. He dialed. + +Somewhere in a city, a phone rang. It rang unheard, for it was locked +into a safe in a tiny rented office with some unusual mechanisms +attached. The ringing was stopped abruptly and a recorded voice +answered, "Yeah?" + +Bryce took a dial phone from the night table where it had been sitting +innocently like a toy he had bought for some child. "Hi Al," he said +cheerfully to the automatic mechanism at the other end. "Listen, I +think I've got a new phrase for that transition theme. How's this?" He +put the receiver against the back of the toy and dialed the toy dial. +It responded to each letter and number with a ringing note of +different pitch that played a short unmelodious tune. + +The pitch notes went over the line and entered the mechanism, making +the contacts within it that dialed the number he had dialed on the toy +phone. + +"How's that?" Bryce said cheerfully. + +The recorded voice said, "Sounds good. I'll see what I can do with +it." Somewhere far away and unheard another phone had begun to ring. +"Want to speak to George?" + +"Sure." + +A phone rang in a pay booth somewhere in a great city railroad +station, and someone browsing at a magazine stand or sitting on a +suitcase apparently waiting for a train strolled casually to answer +it. + +"Hello?" said a noncommittal voice, prepared to claim that he was +merely a stranger answering the phone because it was ringing in +public. + +"Hello George, how's everything going?" Bryce asked. Those words were +his trade mark, the passwords that identified him to everyone as the +Voice who gave Tips. Among the monster organization which had grown +from the proven reliability of those tips, the voice was known as +"Hello George." Hello George's tips were always good, so they had come +to be followed as blindly as tips from God, even when they were not +understood. Certainty was one thing men in the fencing and drug +smuggling business most sorely lacked. + +They communicated only by phone. They transmitted their wares by +leaving them in public lockers and mailing the key. They never saw +each other's faces or heard each other's names, but even the use of a +key could be a trap that would bring a circle of narcotics agents of +INC around the unfortunate who attempted to open the locker. + +Far away over the bulge of the Earth between, a man sat in a phone +booth waiting for his tip. "Pretty well. No complaints. How's with +you, any news?" + +"I think you'd better cut connections with Union Transport. They're +getting pretty sloppy. I think they might spill something." + +"Wadja say?" asked the man at the other end cautiously, "I didn't get +you." + +"Better stop using UT for shipping," Bryce repeated, wording his +sentence carefully. "They aren't careful enough anymore. You don't +want them to break an inc case wide open, do you?" INC was the +International Narcotics Control agency of the F. N. But the +conversation would have sounded like an innocent discussion of +shipping difficulties to any chance listener on the telephone lines. + +The flat tones were plaintive and aggrieved. "But we're expecting a +load of stuff Friday. Our buyers are expecting it." Stuff was drug, +and expecting was a mild word for the need of drug addicts! "And we've +got a lotta loads of miscellaneous items to go out." The contact was a +small man in the organization but he evidently knew just how "hot" +fenced goods could be. "That can't wait!" + +He had planned this. "Maybe they are all right for shipments this +week. I'll chew them out to be careful, check up and call back Friday. +Meanwhile break with them." + +"Tell them a few things from me, the--" the distant voice added a +surprising string of derogatory adjectives. "Friday when?" + +"Friday about--about six." The double "about" confirmed the signal for +a telephone appointment that was general for all contact numbers. + +"Friday about six, Okay." There was a faint click that meant he had +hung up and the phone in the safe was open for more dialings on his +toy dial. + +Bryce hung up, leaned back on his bed and pushed a button that turned +on the radio to a semiclassical program. Soothing music came into the +room and slow waves of colored light moved across the ceiling. He +tuned to a book player, and chose a heavy economics study from the +current seller list of titles which appeared on the ceiling. The daily +moon ship was scheduled to blast off at five thirty, its optimum at +this week's position of the Moon. By this time tomorrow night, he and +all the other members of the Board would be out of reach of any easy +observation or analysis by their hired psychological mind-hunter. + +With a slight chilling of the skin he remembered the cop-psychos the +gangs had warned him about in his scrambling and desperate childhood, +and what they were supposed to do to you when they caught you in a +third offense. + +He had been born into an ex-European quarter in a Chinese city, a +descendant of something prideful and forgotten called an Empire +Builder, and grew with the mixed gangs of children of all colors who +roamed the back streets at night, looting and stealing and breaking. +Population control was almost impossible in a land where the only +social security against starvation in old age was sons, and social +security was impossible in a land so corrupted by the desperation of +famines, so little able to spare the necessary taxes. The nation was +too huge to be fed from outside, and so had been left by the FN to +stew in its own misery until its people solved their basic problem. + +So, in an enlightened clean and wealthy world, Bryce Carter had grown +up in a slum whose swarming viciousness was a matter of take, steal, +kill, climb or die. Perhaps under those special circumstances police +penal compulsion had to be brutally strong, stronger than the drive +for life itself, as brutal as the lurid tales he had heard. Perhaps in +other countries the methods were different, a hypno-converted man not +a horror to his friends, but he had had no time to study and +investigate if it were so, and the horror and hatred remained. + +But there was no need to think about the psycho-hunter the Board had +put on him for by the time the hunter could reach him UT would have +fallen as a legal entity, its corruption would be completely public, +and the psychologist would be called off before discovering anything. +Bryce thought of the slight nervousness he had let show at the first +words of the chairman's announcement. The only witness against him was +himself. His control wasn't perfect. No one's was. But he was safe. + +He concentrated on the opening pages of the Basic Principles of +Economies. + + * * * * * + +In the darkened UT building which could be seen from his window a few +lights still burned where the night shift dealt with emergencies. + +In a small projection room on the fifty-fifth floor a man sat and +looked at a film of the UT Board meeting of that day. He played only a +certain small twenty minute interval, listening closely to the +voices--"Gentlemen, your attention please--" Watching the faces--"Do +the police know of this?" ... "Do you think if we offered this Manoba +the right kind of money...." "Will the gentleman who voted nay on the +secret vote the first time speak up and explain...." "It is entirely +likely that the conspirator is among us." On the screen showed the +apparently bored faces and relaxed poses of men accustomed to the +power game, habitually masking their feelings from each other, +shifting their positions slightly sometimes, some smoking. "We've +dealt with that, let's get on to the next business." + +The watcher stopped the film and silently reset it. It began again +with the chairman on the screen rapping the table lightly. "Gentlemen, +your attention...." + +In the darkened projection room the chairman sat to one side smoking +and thinking while the psychologist played the film through for the +fourth time. + +The chairman was wondering just how seriously the watcher was taking +Mr. Beldman's proposals about what he should do to the culprit, and +whether he would raise his fee. + +The telephone rang. + + * * * * * + +"Four thirty, Mr. Carter," said the voice of the night clerk in the +receiver. + +It was time to catch the five thirty Moon ship. He splashed cold water +on his face and the back of his neck until he was awake, took a hot +shower, dressed rapidly, and gave up his key at the desk at 4:45. + +"A letter for you, Mister Carter," she smiled, handing it to him. From +the wall speakers a mild but penetrating voice began repeating, "Bus +line for spaceport leaving in twelve minutes. All passengers for Luna +City, Moon Base, Asteroid Belt and points out, please go to the +landing deck. Bus line for spaceport leaving in twelve minutes--" + +He opened the letter when he had settled down in a comfortable morris +chair in the airbus. The letterhead said MANOBA Group Psychotherapeutic +Research and Conference Management. + +One sheet of it was a half page contract in fine print, apparently a +standard form with the name of Union Transport Corporation typed in +the appropriate blanks. Above it was printed in clear English and +large type for the benefit of those readers unaccustomed to contracts. +"WARNING. After you have signed this release you have no legal +recourse or claim as an individual against any physical or mental +injury or inconvenience you may claim to have sustained as a result of +the activities of the contracted psychotherapist(s) in the course of +group therapy. Your group is the responsible agent. It must make all +claims and complaints as a unit, and may withdraw from the contract as +a unit. Those who withdraw from the group withdraw from participation +in the contract." + +Bryce smiled. Or in other words, if you didn't like it, you could quit +your job and get out! + +The other sheet he glanced at casually. It seemed to be an explanatory +page to the effect that the Manoba's work was strictly confidential +and they were under no obligation to explain what they had done or +were doing or give their identities to any member of the corporation +who had hired them. There was nothing resembling a sales talk about +results, and the only thing approaching it was a stiff last sentence +referring anyone who was curious about the results of such treatment +to the National Certified Analytical Statistics of Professional +Standing in such and such bulletins of such and such years. + +He signed the contract, smiling, and mailed it at a handy postal and +telegraph window at the spaceport before boarding the spaceship. + + * * * * * + +The phone was ringing. + +Bryce rolled over sleepily and picked it up. "Eight A.M. L.S. S.S. +Sir," said the soft voice of the desk clerk. + +"Okay," he grunted, glancing at his watch and hanging up. It was two +minutes after eight, but he didn't check her up on it. If he placed +the voice rightly, it belonged to an exceptionally pretty brunette. He +had not tried to date her yet, but she looked accessible, and Mona was +becoming tiresome. + +He turned the dial in the headboard that reversed the polarization of +the window and rose reluctantly, stretching as sunlight flooded the +room. It was daylight on Moonbase City. It had been daylight for a +week, and it would be daylight still for another week. + +Through the softening filter of the airtight glass the view of distant +crater walls and the airsealed towers of Moonbase City shone in etched +magnificence, but he gave it only a glance. It was always the same. +There was no weather on the Moon and no variety of view. + +"Good morning," he smiled, passing a bellboy in the luxurious, deep +colored halls. + +"Good morning, Mister Carter," the boy answered rapidly with an eager +nervous smile. + +Bryce had caught the management up sharply on several small lapses, +and they all knew him now. He strode on, pleased. Efficiency.... No +one gave him a second glance or noticed him in the tube trains, but he +was not irritated by it. Someday they would. Someday the whole world +would know his face as well as they knew their own. He promised that +to them silently and then settled down to concentrate on some +constructive planning before reaching the office. He was not going to +waste his time gawking at ads or listening to the music like the +others. + +"Mister Carter?" said a hesitant voice behind him as he was reaching +for the handle of the office doors. + +"What is it?" he asked crisply, turning, but as he saw who had spoken +he knew exactly what it would be. + +"Pardon me Mister Carter, but--" It was a spaceman, a skinny wreck of +a man in clothes that hung on him. A junky, a drug addict. Bryce knew +the signs. He had spent all his money and gone without food for his +drug, and now he had remembered from Belt talk that Bryce Carter was a +soft touch for a loan. "Never mind," Bryce snarled, reaching for the +door again. + +He assisted the smuggling of the stuff but that did not mean that he +had to admire the fools who took it. The man was muttering something +about a loan when the door shut and cut off his words. The loan would +be spent on more junk. If he had wanted food he could have signed into +a state hospital to take the Cure, and be imprisoned and fed until the +hunger for his drug had passed and released him. The Cure was a brief +hell, but it was fair payment for having had his fun, and if the +addict had any guts he would face it. Any time he was ready to pay the +price of exit he could go back to being a man. + +Bryce strode through the offices irritably. It did not matter if +Earthlings chose to waste their time in artificial ecstasy, but it was +different to see a good Belt spaceman let himself go. + +The receptionist looked up with fright in her eyes as he passed and +gave him a special good-morning, with a smile that was tremulous and +very eager to please. He still had her in the stage of new employment +where she was kept afraid of losing her new job with a bad reference. +It was best to put them all over the hurdles at first. + +He gave her a condescending smile as he went through into the inner +offices. "Good morning." She was shaky enough. A few well faked cold +rages against minor errors had done well. From now on she would need +only smiles to give the utmost in loyalty and hard work. What had +Machiavelli said? "Make them fear your wrath, and they will be +grateful for your forebearance." + +He did not bother to speak to Kesby when he passed his open office +door. Kesby didn't need smiles or praise, he worked loyally just for +the rare curt acknowledgement that he had done well. Three years of +managing had made him a good lieutenant, completely faithful. When +Bryce quit Union Transport Kesby would follow him. + + +IV + +He went into his luxurious inner office with its deep rugs and +eye-relaxing colors and its comfortable wide desk with its speaker box +and telephones that were like the nerve wires of power, and sat down +comfortably like a king on a throne or a mule skinner in the driver's +seat with ten pairs of reins in each hand. He never felt completely +awake and up to his full size in the morning until he was here. + +There was a good stack of letters and memos on the desk waiting for +him. On top of the mail stack was a letter labeled PRIVATE in a beamed +spacegram envelope. He did not recognize the name at the head of it +but the return address was General Delivery, Reef Three, The Belt. It +read: + +_Something urgent has come up. Must see you. Arrange when. Bob._ +Roberto Orillo, who had been his manager in the small line that UT had +taken from him, now the owner of a tiny line of his own which +carefully avoided competition with UT in the Belt. + +"Arrange when." They could only meet in secret. What would Orillo want +to discuss? + +The theory he had held in the back of his mind for three days gave +answer--Murder! It was Orillo who was behind the attempted attack on +Earth. This meeting was another trap. Orillo wanted him dead. + +Roberto Orillo had been his first helper with the shipping and +delivery service Bryce had built up from the days when he had been +merely an asteroid prospector with a ship overstocked with supplies +and an obliging willingness to sell his surplus. + +After he put his traveling stores on schedule he noticed that an +increasing number of people began moving into the Belt to settle along +his route without investing in the proper ship or supplies, depending +on him, using his ship for a store and bus service, swelling his +profits. He found that wherever he chose to extend a route and offer +credit for a stake settlers would appear and a community begin to +grow. + +He absorbed that lesson and laid plans. + +UT blocked them. Running his store ships on their regular rounds, +making loans, mediating deals, taking half interests in ideas that +looked profitable, selling fuel and power, subtly binding his +customers to him with bonds of dependency deeper than peonage, Bryce +found suddenly that UT, whose trade mark had never been seen in the +Belt before, had slipped in five ships patterned precisely after his, +but larger, more magnificent and expensive, and set them running on +the same course as his but one day ahead. His customers told him. They +were apologetic but they had bought at the ship which came earliest, +enticed by the glitter and the bargain prices. + +It was a killing blow, and was obviously meant to be so. The UT +managers were wise in the ways of power, and with limitless money +could bankrupt him. + +That day Bryce saw that he could not fight UT from outside, and he saw +a dream of empire greater than Alexander ever dreamed of being ripped +from his hands. When a tactful and conciliating offer came from UT for +a merger and an exchange of stock at double its value, he saw it was +an indirect bribe for his silent submission without complaints to +Spaceways or to the Anti-Cartel Commission of the FN, and he saw that +the only way to compete with the gigantic corporation was to destroy +it from within. + +He held out for a seat on the Board of Directors. They gave it to him. + +And in three years had done an efficient job of corrupting and +undermining UT to the point where it was ready to fall. UT had a week +more to live in respected public service before an outraged public +tore it apart. + +Bryce had left Orillo in the Belt to form a small delivery company +servicing thinly settled outlying points where the profits were too +small to disturb UT. It would be this company that would take over and +buy out the UT equipment when Spaceways chopped up the monster +corporation, and it was planned that Orillo offer Bryce full +partnership when this event took place. + +But perhaps Orillo objected to sharing his reign with a partner. And +perhaps Orillo had always objected to the fact that Bryce was the only +one who knew Orillo was a fugitive from justice. Bryce had never quite +been able to tell what went on behind the handsome blond face and +impassive blue eyes of his assistant. + +Bryce had taken him in hand and given him a job after Orillo fled from +a murder charge in South Africa. And Bryce had arranged the operations +that gave Orillo a new face, new fingerprints and an unworried future. +Only Bryce could now give the word to the police which could bring the +examination that would show Orillo's retina tallied with that of a +wanted man. + +But if murder had always lain behind those impassive pale blue eyes, +why had there been no attempts before? The answer to that was easy. Up +to this time Bryce's activities had been profitable to Orillo. He had +seen where Bryce's plans were leading and wanted them to succeed, so +that he might step into Bryce's shoes and reap the results. + +In three more months Bryce's death would be the death of a partner, +and bring the unwanted spotlight of police investigation on Orillo +himself, but now, at this point, the disappearance of Bryce Carter +would bring police inquiry and suspicion only to the already shaky and +undermined fabric of UT. + +Bryce counted the profit and loss of his death to the man he had +helped, and smiled ruefully. Yet the request for the meeting might be +genuine and important. He had to take a chance on it and meet his +ex-assistant and future partner somewhere far away from witnesses, +recognition--or protection. + +Taking a memo pad he printed, _I'll meet you Friday; 3:PM LM_, and +wrote in the coordinates of a position in space not very far out from +Earth, indicated the radar blink signals for its buoy and clipped the +memo sheet to the envelope with its false name and return address. +Ringing for his secretary, he handed it to her. + +"See that that gets beamed back immediately. Friend of mine seems to +be in some sort of a jam." + +That was that. He turned to his work. After an hour or so the intercom +box clicked and Kesby said unexpectedly, "Visitor to see you, boss. +Can I send him in?" + +"Yes." The receptionist had strict orders to keep out everyone except +those scheduled for appointment, and to announce the names and +businesses of dubious cases for his deciding, but Kesby must have +overridden her decision. He sounded confident. Probably someone +important. + + * * * * * + +Kesby opened the door with an expression half nervous, half +mischievous, "Your visitor," and closed it hastily as the person +stepped in. + +He didn't belong in there. It was obvious to Bryce that whoever he +was, he had gotten in through a lie. + +The young man who stood inside his office watching him was no one +connected with the business. He was too young for any position of +importance. The slender frailty of childhood was still with him. Yet +that impression soon faded under the impressiveness of his stance. It +was more than just arrogance or poise, it was an unshakable +confidence. As if no failure could be conceived. + +He stood balanced to move either forward or back. His voice was again +a surprise. Absolute total clarity, almost without inflection as if +the words reached the mind without needing a voice. "If you're going +to throw me out, this is the best time to do it." Dark brown skin of +one of the dark races, jet black straight hair, a dark pair of eyes +that were merry and watchful and had the impact of something +dangerous. Colossal gall, Bryce characterized it to himself. He might +be as good as he thinks he is. He was probably selling the Brooklyn +Bridge, and he should never have gotten in, but the fact that he had +somehow gotten past Kesby made him worth a few questions before being +thrown out. + +"What do you want?" + +He came forward to the desk to answer. "I want to be your right arm." +He took out a pack of cigarettes, shaking one free and offering it +with courtesy. "Have one?" Bryce shook his head and the boy put one +between his own lips and put the pack away. "My name is Pierce," he +said, lighting the cigarette with the flame cupped in his hands as if +he were used to smoking in the wind. He looked up with his eyes +squinting against the smoke, shook the match out and dropped it in the +desk ash tray. "Roy Pierce." + +He was as much at home as an invading army. Bryce felt an impulse to +laugh. + +He knew this kid very well, but he couldn't place where, when, or how. +"Am I supposed to know the name?" + +"Do you remember Pop Yak?" + +Bryce remembered Pop Yak. He gave in with a sigh, and ordered in the +singsong vernacular of his childhood. "Okay. Sitselfdel, speeltalk +cutchop!" + +Pop Yak was a grizzled man who had watched Bryce fighting with another +kid. Afterward he had taken Bryce into his store and given him ice +cream and some pointers on dirty fighting. Not much had penetrated the +first time but Bryce went back for advice again, learning that that +was the place to be told how to do things and get what he wanted. Pop +was always patient with his teaching, and always right. + +He had chosen Bryce as his agent to sell minor drugs to the other kids +and acted as a fence for the things he stole, and he encouraged him to +study in the compulsory school and loaned him books. And Pop was the +first to give him the tip on legitimate business and how to pull money +on the right side of the law and make a profit they couldn't kick +about. Good old Pop. "Will-pay." The boy sat down and leaned forward +with a slight intent motion of a hand that was Pop's favorite gesture, +one Bryce had picked up from him himself. + +"He told me you're on the way up." Roy Pierce held him with a steady +dark gaze. "I want a slice of that, and I want it the easy way, +hitching my wagon to your rocket. You can use me. A big man is too +public. You need a new hand and a new voice, one that does what you +want done, and can do it in the dark or the light, without your +name--a stand-in for alibis, and a contriver of accidents so they +break for you without your motion. A left arm that your enemies don't +recognize as yours." + +He was asking to be Bryce's substitute in the things that had to be +done without connection to himself, and yet had to be done by Bryce +himself, because no one could be trusted with the knowledge of them. + +Could he be trusted? His coming could be another trap by the +unidentified enemy. It was almost too providential, almost too well +timed. "References and abilities?" + +Roy Pierce reached into his wallet and handed out an aptitude profile +card backed by the universal test score listings in training and +skills on the other side. Bryce played with the card and studied the +youth. The boy was well dressed in a dark tailored suit of the kind +Bryce favored. He looked able, clean, cool and ruthless. "Armed?" +Bryce asked. + +A thing like a very thick cigar suddenly appeared in Pierce's hand. +The end of it pointing at him was solid except for a very small hole. +A needle gun, obviously, loaded with two and a half inch grooved drug +carrying needles. + +"Sleep or death?" Bryce asked. + +"Sleep," Pierce said, putting it away. "It's licensed." Bryce wondered +what made him so sure he could trust this kid. He analyzed while he +questioned. He did not bother to look at the card. + +"Languages?" + +"Basic coast pidgin, symbolic and glot." Basic English and Poliglot, +the two universals. + +"Detector proofed?" Lie detectors could be a nuisance, for they were +used casually and universally without needing the legal warrants and +deference to constitutional immunities and medical supervision of +hypno-questioning. + +Pierce smiled with a flash of white teeth. "First thing I ever saved +my money for." + +Though they spoke standard English, Bryce had placed his intonations +almost to the block he grew up in. Almost to the half block! He was as +familiar as Pop Yak, as familiar as his own face in the mirror, and as +understandable. Bryce knew the inside of his mind as well as if it +were a suddenly attached lobe of his own. It was like looking back +through time at himself younger and less complex. + +Pop Yak had turned out another on the same model, a younger simpler +duplicate of himself. Pierce was doing exactly what he said, offering +service to Bryce as he would offer him a sword, simply for the risk +and delight of being an instrument in a power game with stakes as high +as he had guessed Bryce's game to be. There was no danger of him being +a plant, and no danger of him squealing under pressure: the risk of +death or arrest was part of his pay. + + * * * * * + +"Okay," Bryce said. He gestured with his head to a corner of the room +behind him. "Sit over there. You're my cousin from Montehedo, and I'm +showing you the town." He turned to his appointment pad again and +read. After Pierce had placed a chair in the indicated position, Bryce +said without turning. "This week I can use a bodyguard. Someone's +hiring killers for me." + +There was no sound of motion for a moment. Bryce got the idea that +Pierce was more surprised than the fact warranted. But his question +was gentle and deadly. "Any idea who?" + +"The line forms to the left." Bryce said dryly, "Put away that needle +gun and buy something legal that kills." He handed back a sheaf of +letters, memos and graphs. "Read these and learn." For some reason he +felt exhilarated. + +He turned back to work, routing shipments, shifting rates to balance +shifting costs, lowering rates for preliminary incentive on lines that +could run at lower cost with a heavier load, occasionally using the +Bell communication load analyzer and Kesby's formula analysis for a +choice of ways of averting bottlenecks and overload slow-down points, +sometimes consulting the solar system maps on the walls. + +Good service built up customer demand and dependency on good service. +Producers manufacturing now on Earth with the new materials shipped in +from space could not be cut off from access to the new materials +without ruin to the manufacturers. Earth was becoming dependent on +space transport. + +Once the customers were given it, they grew to need it. He smiled at +the thought. It was another kind of drug traffic, and wielded the +same kind of potentially infinite power over the customers. + +One thing he had learned from the Economics tome he had struggled with +four nights ago, a simple inexorable principle he had recognized dimly +before--that since it was difficult and more expensive to ship out +goods from Earth to space than it was to drop goods into Earth from +space, eventually spacepeople might be independent of Earth, and Earth +totally dependent on space products. + +The potentialities of the business game were amazing past anything Pop +Yak had ever hinted, but the funny thing was he had to find it out +step by step for himself. That kind of excitement wasn't in stories. +The adventures of explorers, research men, and detectives were written +into stories, but not money men. The life and growth and death and +blackmail of individuals were in the stories he had read, but not the +murder of planets and cities, the control and blackmail of whole +populations, in this odd legal game with the simple rules. Funny there +hadn't been lurid stories about this in the magazines he read as a +kid. + +He grinned--Well, the kids would read about _him_. In fifteen years +he'd have everyone under his thumb and they'd smile and bow and be +frightened just speaking to him. + +The work vanished rapidly, the pile of accumulated letters and reports +dwindling, and the phone ringing at intervals. + +Complaints he dealt with carefully, wording each letter in reply so as +to give the impression that he, Bryce Carter, was personally breaking +the corporation policy to satisfy the complainer, and adding a word of +praise on the intelligence and lucidity of the complaining letter. So +far he had made a total of some six hundred letter-writing allies that +way. Complainants were usually loquacious, interfering types who +expressed more than their share of public opinion, and many would +glorify him to everyone whose ear they could hold, if only to have it +known that they were on pally terms with a Director of the great UT. + +Many of the letters were merely friendly and chatty, telling of money +troubles, successes and family affairs. To these he recorded a few +friendly remarks on wire spool, telling the same joke to each, and +slipped each loop of wire into an envelope to be mailed. + +Pierce, studying a transport routing map, looked over and grinned at +the sixth repetition of the joke, and Bryce grinned back and continued +on recording a letter to an address in the Ozarks. "Got a young cousin +of mine in from Montehedo, Miss Furnald, he's sitting here watching to +see how a big business office operates and he's grinning at me because +it looks like I want to just sit and talk at my friends all day long. +I have fifty-nine business letters here to answer--honest to +God--fifty-nine, I just counted them, so I guess I'll cut off and show +the young squirt how I can work. Send me that photo of your sister's +new baby." + +He hung up the record mouthpiece. One more voter and loyal friend to +pull for him when he was a public figure and the going got rough. + +He grinned. It was a strange life and a strange game. + + +V + +When he left the office with Pierce, someone stepped out of a corner +of the corridor and clutched at his sleeve, speaking rapidly. Bryce +brushed off the hand carelessly and walked on. + +"A junky," he remarked to Pierce. There was a quick flash of motion +behind them that sent them whirling to one side. Pierce stood aside +with the small needle gun in his palm waiting to see if it would be +needed, while Bryce finished the downstroke of his hand that sent the +knife and the junky reeling to the rubbery corridor flooring. + +"Shall I report him?" Pierce asked, making his needle gun vanish in +the same smooth motion it had appeared, and indicating a phone sign. + +"No. It doesn't matter," Bryce walked on thoughtfully. "Everyone wants +to kill me at once." + +Pierce said, "It's easy to sway a miserable man to the point of +pinning all his troubles and hate on to one name, like Bryce Carter." + +"I know," said Bryce. He saw that the smiling dark young man was +alert, walking a little ahead of him and glancing quickly left and +right as they approached corners and intersections and recessed +doorways where a man could wait unseen, doing his job as a bodyguard +efficiently and inconspicuously. "If it's the man I think it is," +Bryce told him, falling into step again after they passed the turn +into the tube trains, "he's working against a deadline. It's now or +never. There won't be any more of this after next month." + +Pierce answered after a glance at a passing mirror to see if they were +followed, and a quick scan of the train platform. "Your usual haunts +will be booby trapped. Better stay out of routine." + +That night, in the spacehands end of the city, they ate the dinner +that he usually had with Mona at a nightclub, or alone looking for a +good pickup in an expensive cocktail lounge. It was in the shipping +area around the docks, at the opposite end of the city from his usual +haunts. The ceiling was low and the glasses shivered and danced with +the constant muted thunder of jets that shuddered through the floor +from the nearby landing fields. + +His new assistant and bodyguard was pleasantly deferential, lighting +cigarettes for him, listening respectfully to his opinions, drawing +him out with questions that showed he understood what he was listening +to. + +Bryce could not remember having had such a good time talking since he +left the company of the meteorite miners at the Belt. Everything he +said seemed right and even brilliant. As he talked and told anecdotes +of his life and sketched some of his plans he saw his past life with +peculiar vividness as if he were a stranger seeing it for the first +time. In the reflected light of the interest and enthusiasm of his +audience, events took on a new glow of entertainment and adventure and +success where they had seemed to be just work and risk and routine at +the time. + +They had an evening to pass. Somehow Pierce got into conversation with +a little Egyptian who could have stood for Cyrano and had the same +merry impetuous way about him. Raz Anna was his name. He claimed to be +the Caliph of Baghdad, still incognito, or perhaps a professional +explorer disguised as a native. After a few drinks he enlisted them, +somewhat confusedly, as the two missing musketeers and they found +themselves wandering arm in arm from bar to bar and up and down dark +alleys interviewing the heathen natives. + +Bryce realized that he was laughing steadily and enjoying himself in a +way that had nothing to do with the small number of drinks he had had. + +He couldn't get any deference out of Raz. Raz wouldn't have deferred +to God himself, and it was no use trying to impress him, for nothing +impressed him. Apparently the hook-nosed, merry little man had no +ambition and no envy of anyone, and wanted no better of life than he +had at the moment. + +It was a strange new world they led Bryce through--Not the ragged, +starving, crowded viciousness of his childhood--not the fighting +equality of spacemen and rock miners, many of them wanted by the +law--not the simple barren hospitality of the settlers in the Belt who +owed him money, and who invited him to their sparse dinners in +gratitude--Those he had always managed to keep in their places and +exact a certain measure of respect. + +Even the smooth powerful men of wealth around him now accorded him a +certain measure of deference that was an acknowledgement of strength. +But the two musketeers he was with and the world they opened for him +seemed to respect neither distance nor politeness, nor hold any fear +for strength. Friendly insults, and uncritical friendliness mingled +oddly with the mock-solemn pretense of the fairy tale, and that part +was genuine and spontaneous. It didn't seem to be a different kind of +people he was meeting exactly: it was the same kind of people +approached differently. He didn't know exactly how it was done, and he +let the other two take the lead. + +Perhaps he had drunk too much, he thought as he rode the hotel +elevator. For in retrospect, the evening was a haze of pleasure that +was hard to pin his attention to. Everything he had said, everything +that had happened seemed profoundly right, an atmosphere which he had +encountered rarely before and only then in the last stage of +drunkenness. But he was sober. He had had only a few drinks, and his +perceptions seemed sharpened rather than blurred. Yet, where there +should have been critical thoughts and regrets for errors and restless +plans in his mind, there was only a pleasant empty buzz. + +"Too much talk," he thought, yawning as he walked down the luxurious +hotel corridor to his room. + + * * * * * + +It was that night that he first noticed something wrong with the +mirror. + +He glanced into it casually while undressing, then not so casually, +walking up to it and inspecting his face. A slight, unpleasant tingle +coursed along his nerves. + +A stranger--When he tried to focus on what was wrong he could find +nothing that looked any different, yet the total effect was completely +wrong. He decided that it must be the mirror, some subtle distortion +of the reflection. The old one must have been broken in cleaning and a +new one put in. + +The chill passed and still the good blank feeling lasted. He went to +bed reviewing the evening and smiling, and went to sleep without +resorting to the mental arithmetic that he generally used to clear his +mind of dissatisfactions. + +The next morning the mirror still looked peculiar. There seemed to be +nothing wrong with the reflected image of the room, but when he gave +himself the usual inspection before stepping out into the corridor the +feeling of strangeness returned and his eyes felt as if they were +blurring. + +He put his hand up to his eyes instinctively and felt a distinct shock +when the mirrored image did the same. + +Odd. + +A slender smiling young man joined him in the lobby, rising and +falling into step with him as he passed, going through doors before +him with the inconspicuous alertness and precaution. He did his duties +as a bodyguard well, Bryce noted, but that was only to be expected. +Efficiency is, and should be, unnoticeable. + +One thing he discovered during the working morning at the office. +There had been nothing wrong with the mirror in his hotel room. The +washroom mirror was worse! + +He stood for a while, frozen in midstep, while he looked at a lean +tanned and freckled face which looked like a color movie of his, every +feature in its proper place as he remembered it, but yet not his. It +didn't belong to him. He made faces at it, and it made faces back as +if it were his, while he tried to believe that he was looking out of +the gray eyes which looked back at him, then he heard someone coming +in and left suddenly and sheepishly. + +That afternoon, after Pierce got into the swing of the work, he began +to be useful, fitting himself into the work routine as though he had +always been part of it, making the right calls and contacts and +appointments on the barest hints, handing him the phone intuitively as +he needed it, always at the right time with almost telepathic +instinct. While checking over the decisions and plans of Kesby and the +staff that needed his okay, and signing typed letters Bryce talked the +thoughts and plans which came half formed to mind, almost thinking +aloud. And when his remarks struck something that sounded like it +would be good to do soon, he saw Pierce jotting them down, later +detailing the preliminary steps for Bryce's use. + +And too, all the small tasks were being taken from him with easy +naturalness, saving him much time. His assistant was being what he had +claimed he would be, a genuinely useful left hand. Bryce found himself +proud of the kid's manifest efficiency, for he was a product of the +same school that Bryce himself had climbed from. + +On the way back to the hotel, after work, he caught Pierce glancing at +him with a thoughtful expression, and realized that he had been +faltering and giving a second glance to every public mirror that he +had passed. He was momentarily embarrassed, wondering if any strain +had showed on his expression. + +There was a party he had to go to that night so he changed to formal +clothes and stepped off again for the home of the FN Administrative +Governor of the Moon. + +He did not want to attend. It would be another of those stiff, +lonesome dinners he had suffered through before, but he had to learn +to make friends on his own social level, and be easy and convivial +with the kind of people he would be associating with the rest of his +life. + +After the first hour had given him a good test, Bryce decided that the +evening was as bad as he had anticipated. He stood on the outskirts of +a small group, holding a drink and watching resentfully as a +startlingly beautiful woman laughed and talked with the others of the +group and not with him. She had been introduced to him as Sheila +Wesley. The jokes she had with the others were quick and subtle +flashes of wit and insight, and seemed to be based on a mutual +understanding that he could not share, even though some of the others +had just been introduced and had been strangers to each other a few +minutes back; it was something he grasped vaguely as a common +background and approach to life that they shared, perhaps through +education. + +There were quick references to political situations they all seemed +familiar with, or a name that could have been some character in a book +they might all have read, or could have been somebody in history, each +reference followed by a subdued laugh and an added witty statement +from some other quarter. No one of them gave a word to him or noticed +that he was there. + +Why should they? He was dressed well and expensively, but so were they +all. He was a person of prominence and power, but so were they all, +and bored by it. He could not talk like the others. Then what could he +do to make Sheila Wesley smile at him the way she smiled down at the +ridiculous little fat man beside her as he excitably stuttered out his +opinions. + + * * * * * + +Sheila Wesley was not like Mona, to be captured by money and clothes +and influence. Would she be impressed even by the power he would have +later? He tried to picture her as tremulous and awed, hanging on his +words and flattering him, but he couldn't believe it. She probably +wouldn't notice him any more than now. There was nothing he could do +to impress her. He had thought Mona had poise, but now he saw that her +manner was just an inadequate carbon copy of a completely spontaneous +original. The woman, Sheila, managed to be poised, aloof, and yet +friendly to everyone, simultaneously warm and unattainable. + +He desired to be bitingly rude. That, at least, would make her admit +that he existed. She was smiling at that ridiculous little fat man +again. + +He drained his glass and, completely unnoticed, left the party. Nobody +would miss him, he was sure. + +Outside in the corridor, Roy Pierce, his assistant, was engaged in +conversation with two young men and two girls. + +"There he is now," he heard Pierce say. + +And one of the young men came toward him laughing. + +"Is it true that this lunatic cannot go and make up with the lady of +his heart because she has had him banned? If we all try to smuggle him +in--" + +And one of the girls, a really gorgeous blonde, called, "He was just +telling us about that time you were in space with the pirates after +you and they had stolen the big focusing mirror from the first Belt +foundry furnace. I'm sure you can tell it better--you tell it." + +He was surrounded by the five then. "Go ahead," they were urging, +laughing, "Go ahead!" "It didn't really happen did it?" + +This accusation was made by the pretty blonde. He looked at her half +indignantly. "I don't know how he tells it but it happened." And he +began to tell what had happened. + +The two girls and the two young men listened, adding occasional +startled interjections and admiring laughter. + +Pierce inserted an occasional question and Bryce became aware that in +answering them he was guided to stress and amplify points that made +clearer the danger and comedy. Later he became aware that he was half +consciously following the clues of Pierce's expression for the right +stress and mood of the telling, now off-hand and smiling in telling +what he had done, now heavily dramatic mimicking and burlesquing the +tones and threats of the outlaws, now ironic and bitterly indifferent +in passing over damage and deaths--as a wryly lifted eyebrow in the +dark young face listening, and a faint imperceptible shrug made him +see what had happened from a different angle than he had seen it then. +Pierce apparently had something he needed, a good story sense. +Following him must be something he had learned unconsciously last +night, but it worked. He could see how well it worked in the +expressions of his audience. + +Someone leaving the party had stopped to listen, standing behind his +right shoulder. When he finished, amid the exclamations and sighs of +his listeners a cool, familiar voice drawled. + +"That's quite a story. I picked up something about that at the new +foundry on reef five, but it was already an old yarn then." She stood +before him, still smooth and poised and lovely, offering her hand. +"I'm glad to hear it from the horse's mouth. Aren't you Bryce Carter? +We were introduced in there, I think, but the name didn't click." + +It was Sheila Wesley. + +That evening was something to remember. + +First they were a private party at a nightclub, then at a small +restaurant. Tom, Betty, who was the pretty blonde, Ralph and the +pretty brunette whose name was Marsha, Pierce, himself and Sheila. The +talk ranged wildly over a multitude of subjects, breaking sometimes +into collective fantasies of nonsense like a hat full of fireworks +that left them laughing helplessly, sometimes shifting to philosophy +and mutual confidences. Every so often Pierce brought the subject +around to something that struck home to Bryce and he found himself +holding forth with unexpected passion and eloquence, and he was +surprised to see that the others were keenly interested. + +Pierce rarely said more than an occasional cheerful remark, but in the +more subtle plays of conversation Bryce found himself still half +consciously consulting the cues of his expression to find what his own +reaction should be, to find the right word and the right attitude that +pleased the table and urged them all on to greater and more fantastic +heights of talk. It was obvious that Pierce never had any difficulty +understanding anyone. He had an instinct that Bryce lacked, and Bryce +willingly surrendered to superior skill and followed his silent lead. + +Sheila he discovered, besides being a member of one of the top +diplomatic families, had worked for a short while as a consultant at +the Belt plastic manufactory when it was being set up, and had taken +to space life. She shared his enthusiasm about the future of the +Asteroid Belts. + +It was an unprecedented evening. At the close of it he had four new +friends, and had discovered that "Tom" was Thomas Mayernick, one of +the attorneys of the Spaceways Commission, and one of the men whom he +had gone to the dinner to meet. + +And Sheila, tall and slender and beautiful, pressed his hand as the +group parted, and said in her wonderful voice, "I want to see you +again Bryce," she smiled. "I eat at the technicians' end of town, you +know. I'll be with a Group at Geiger's Counter, tomorrow lunch. If you +bear the company of slide rule artists we'd be glad to see you any +time." + +He stood for a moment, oddly surprised. + +"Say thank you to the lady." Pierce smiled. And to Sheila, "You +shouldn't startle people like that, Ma'm. His heart's weak." + +"I just dropped dead," Bryce said, finding words. "You aren't leading +me on? You'll be there?" + +"On my honor," she smiled. "Good night, Bryce." She was used to such +tributes. Half mocking as they were, she knew how much they were +basically sincere, and accepted their tribute to her beauty as a +matter of course. What a wife to have and introduce as his wife to +other men, and see the look in their eyes. + +He remembered suddenly that he had not once mentioned that he was a +Director of UT. Somehow the conversation had never been led to a +subject where he could have said it. He made a mental note to tell her +next time. It seemed strange that he had been with five people so many +hours without informing them that he was a Director of UT. He had done +the same thing last night, now he remembered. But they had seemed to +like him without it. + +He let himself into his hotel room and turned on the light, but the +first sidewise glimpse of himself in the mirror was disturbing. He +solved that problem by the remarkably simple expedient of turning the +light out again, and undressed in the dark, grinning foolishly. + + +VI + +Approaching the scientists' and technicians' row along the subsurface +arcades, the expensive restaurants grew fewer and were replaced by +German-type beer halls, schools with courses advertised in their +posted schedules whose titles were completely unintelligible to him, +and second hand bookstalls selling battered technical books and +journals whose titles were undecipherable in any tongue Bryce could +think of. The lunch hour crowds were beginning to pour out into the +arcades from elevators and tube trains in a rush to get first place in +their favorite eating places. + +Pierce half turned as if his eyes caught on the expression of a face +behind them. + +"Carter! There you are, you bastard!" The voice came from behind him, +thick with rage, but more than that was the insult. It meant +challenge. This was nothing in which Pierce could defend him! + +Bryce wheeled, left hand automatically plucking out his magnomatic, +wondering if the attacker would be the honorable kind of duelist who +would hold fire long enough for him to get his gun out. + +Miraculously it seemed to be happening. He already had his sights +halfway on to the speaker when he recognized him, a gross heavy figure +he had seen a hundred times. Mr. Beldman of the Board of Directors. +What was he doing on the Moon? + +Beldman stood with his fists on his hips and his legs spraddled, +sneering at Bryce. "That's right," he said, heavily sarcastic, "start +shootin' when you're surrounded by innocent spectators; when you know +I can't draw on you. That's the way of a crook." The husky base voice +echoed from the walls. Behind him to the bend of the corridor people +were scattering hastily out of the firing line. + +_Crook_ was the central word. Somehow Beldman had found out that Bryce +was responsible for the corruption of UT, and he was dealing with the +matter in the most direct way that it could be dealt with, for a death +in a private duel would be laid to a quarrel and not investigated. + +How had he found out? Bryce forced down the question as he stiffly +reholstered his magnomatic. There was no use thinking of that until +the question of surviving the next five minutes was settled. He stood +with his hands empty, feeling curiously empty inside, oddly missing +the white rage and love of murder that usually carried him through +such things. + +It seemed too good a day to spoil. He would rather have continued his +way to lunch with Sheila, and let the man live--or let himself live. +This would be no duel for a little bloodletting. Beldman's purpose was +to kill. And Beldman himself, knowing what he knew, had to die. "Do +you understand what you have said, sir?" Bryce used the formal words +of the dueling countries. + +"You're damn well right I do!" + +"Are you prepared to take the consequences, sir?" + +"More ready than you are," Beldman said, his hands still on his hips. +He amplified his remark with a few well chosen words that harked back +to his truck driving days. + +"How many shots?" Bryce asked more softly, beginning to want to kill. + +"Until one of us is down with his gun out of his hand." + +Bryce repeated the provision to the crowd that had drawn up discreetly +along the side-lines. "We fire until one of us is both down and +disarmed." + +There was a murmur of surprise among the crowd for that was an unusual +and deadly provision for a formal duel. As Bryce paced backward the +required number of paces, counting aloud, two men volunteered as +seconds. They came forward to compare the guns rapidly and show them +to the duelists. It had to be done and finished rapidly, for lunch +hour had begun with its flood of people into the corridors, and they +were holding up traffic. + +Bryce's gun was a .42 magnomatic, working on an electrical +acceleration of the slug by electromagnetic rings in the thick barrel. +It was soundless except for a legal built-in radio yeep that announced +its firing and number to the police emergency receivers. Beldman's gun +was another maggy of the same make but heavier with a wide-mouthed +barrel apparently throwing a much heavier caliber slug. + +"Ready?" The second stepped back to the edge of the crowd and began +counting off half a minute by seconds. + +The faces of the crowd faded from his consciousness. Bryce stood with +his hands empty at his sides as the seconds were counted. "Thirty, +twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven," came the voice, counting +evenly and loudly. The world narrowed to a corridor of space with the +blocky figure of Beldman at one end and himself at the other. Funny, +Bryce thought, that he had never considered that bull-headed +impatience and strength as dangerous. He was a massive block of a man; +where Bryce was thick with muscle, J. H. Beldman was so wide in +shoulder and barrel and so thick in arm that he looked almost round. +Like Bryce he had worked up from the bottom, Bryce remembered, +starting as a truck driver and labor organizer, and then owning his +own line and giving UT a stiff battle before being bought out. Crude, +but that didn't mean that there wasn't a lightning brain behind that +round face. + +"Twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three--" + +He had underestimated the deadliness of the man. Beldman was obviously +subject to rages, and in the grip of one now, and if he had survived +all the duels and battles that his rages had brought long enough to +grow as old as he was then his age was an indication not of weakness, +but of the degree of his deadliness. The irritable thought came that +he might well be killed by this ox. + +"Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen--" + +He flexed his fingers restlessly, and felt in his mind the speed and +sureness of his draw and firing. That big blocky figure was just +another obstacle standing in his way, to be blasted aside. A loud +mouth to be shut. + +"Ten, nine--" He concentrated on the counting, "--six, five, four--" +sureness growing like a coiled spring in every muscle. "--three--" He +crouched slightly. That blocky figure that was all the rest of the +world was no more than a target. A big target. + +"Two--one--_fire_." + +Something confusing happened. As the word came it seemed that a +gigantic blow hit him somewhere on his left shoulder, twisting him +around so he couldn't see his target. He spun back, willing himself to +shoot again quickly, but his legs buckled oddly as he turned. He +reeled, finding his balance with great effort. + +Heavy slug, he thought, seeing as delayed memory the coiled spring +speed with which Beldman had moved. Bryce's left arm did not seem to +have any connection with his mind. Glancing down briefly he saw that +it dangled. + + * * * * * + +But the maggy was still there, held in the numb, unfeeling hand, +pointed limply at the ground. + +He wondered if he had fired it yet. + +"Drop it and fall down," advised Pierce's clear voice from somewhere. + +There was a stirring and whisper from the blur of the crowd who stood +watching to see that the rules were observed. Beldman was walking +towards him. + +"Do you end the duel?" asked someone, probably the second. + +"No," the blur of Beldman answered and suddenly he came into focus, +walking up, his wide mouthed gun unwavering in his hand. Bryce +remembered the provisions of the duel. Fire until one is down and +weaponless. There was nothing said about remaining at a fixed +distance. Beldman intended to walk up close enough to shoot him +between the eyes. It was too late to let himself fall and end the +duel. Beldman would fire if he saw Bryce begin to fall now. He was +already close enough for a sure head shot. + +Feeling was returning to his left arm. It dangled abnormally far and +probably looked broken and useless, but there was nothing actually +wrong with it, only something in his shoulder was broken. After the +first cold numbness of impact, sensation returned tingling in his +fingers, and pain was beginning to burn in his shoulder. Bryce waited +a few more seconds, feeling the control returning to his fingers, not +changing the glazed off focus of his eyes. How many duels had Beldman +won like this? The impact of one of those heavy slugs hitting bone was +a dazing blow, enough to stun some men, and he probably counted on +that effect. + +The square figure lumbered closer, a lumpish clumsy caricature of the +self-made man, brutally strong, unashamedly misfit to the society of +the smooth-wise, smiling, easy mannered people that he and Bryce had +joined; a model of everything that Bryce was trying to destroy in +himself. + +With a quick twist of the wrist Bryce swung his palm flat up flipping +the magnomatic muzzle into line with it and put a bullet into the +round face. + +In that position of his hand the back kick of the shot twisted his arm +back in its broken shoulder and pulled the maggy from his hand, but it +didn't matter. The duel was over. + +The motionless crowd dissolved again into talking individuals going to +lunch. + +Pierce picked up the maggy and made the usual query of those who chose +to remain. + +"Which of you has any complaint of unfairness or advantage taken by +either party of this duel?" + +Most of them were leaving, anticipating the arrival of the police with +their time-consuming questions, but twenty or so crowded close around +Bryce and the corpse. "Press a thumb on your shoulder sub-clavian, +man," someone advised Bryce. "You're bleeding like a faucet." + +Pierce's clear voice said the standard words over the murmur and +shuffle of feet. "No unfairness having been observed, when called to +give testimony you can then say that he shot in self-defense and under +duress." + +A low wail of sirens was heard. + + * * * * * + +"Who was that character?" Pierce asked later, sitting beside the table +while a surgeon patiently pieced together the three or four shattered +pieces of Bryce's collarbone and fastened them with ingenious plastic +bolts. + +Bryce absently watched the process in a large tilted mirror slung +overhead. Medicine bored him. "J. H. Beldman, member of the Board of +Directors," he explained, and for the benefit of the policeman +standing beside the door he added, "Bad tempered as they come." He +looked into the mirror uneasily, trying to focus on his face. + +His clothes were being cleaned of blood and dried somewhere. When the +doctor had finished sewing and patching Bryce showered and dressed in +a small dressing room beside the emergency ward, where he found his +clothes hanging neatly in a drying closet. + +As he finished a man in plain clothes entered and dismissed the cop +with a word, and handed Bryce a printed notice and his magnomatic; +"You're clear," he said, leaving again with a friendly half salute. +"No charges." The police had already recorded the testimony of the +witnesses and inspected the weapons used. It had been a fair duel and +the survivor was clear with a standard case for self-defense. The +printed notice called him to testify at the coroner's inquest into the +death of J. H. Beldman during the next Saturday, but there would be no +charges and no investigation. + +There would be no trouble from Beldman, but who else knew what he had +known, that Bryce Carter was responsible for the corruption of UT? How +had he learned it? If someone else knew, there was going to be +trouble. + +Coming out of the emergency ward, he checked his watch. + +One-fifteen. Too late to find Sheila Wesley still at Geiger's Counter. +But he knew he could see her another day--and with a good story to +explain why he had not turned up the first time. + +They ate at the nearest stand and went back to work. Trying to write +was almost impossible, and even using his left hand for minor tasks +was difficult. In spite of quick healing of muscle and flesh from the +amino and nucleic acid powders the doctor had packed in, the shoulder +ached with a tightness that spoiled his coordination. He shifted to +writing clumsily with his right hand. + +After twenty minutes he abandoned the pretense of working and began +thoughtfully doing practice draws with his right hand. It was stiff +and clumsy, and there was no holster in his right pocket to make +grasping easy. The second time the maggy caught on his pocket edge and +slipped from his hand he left it on the rug where it had fallen, +sitting looking at it thoughtfully for a moment. Today was the day he +would meet Orillo. + +"How well can you handle a four tube cabin cruiser?" + +"Line of sight only. I'm no navigator," Pierce responded. + +Bryce said soberly, realizing what he had decided, "This is a good day +to have a bodyguard who's a good shot. I have an appointment to meet a +friend--and I'm not sure he's a friend." + +"I shoot," Pierce said, writing at one of the letters he had been set +to. "Happy to oblige. Shall I wear my bulletproof clothes?" + +"You could do with something like that," Bryce said soberly. + +Pierce looked up from the letters. "Would this be the man behind all +these bullets, and you're meeting him in space?" + +"Yes." + +"In armor plated tanks with heavy artillery?" + +"No." + +"No light and heavy cruisers. No marines?" + +"Just you." Bryce was smiling at Pierce's mock astonishment. He knew +that the kid didn't care in the slightest where Bryce led him as long +as there was a fight at the end of it, and he left it to Bryce to +choose the odds. + +The odds might be even enough. Orillo himself, if he came with murder +as his intention, would bring no helpers for witnesses, and he would +expect Bryce to bring none. Or if he had hired assassins, he would not +come himself, and they would not know who had hired them, but they +would have been told to expect one man only. + + * * * * * + +The secrecy of any meeting in space is practically absolute. If there +is one thing which space has plenty of, it's distance--distance enough +to lose things in, distance enough to hide in, distance enough so that +even if you know where something is by all the figures of its +coordinates, if it's smaller than a planet you can't find it even when +you are there. To put it crudely, what space has is space. And finding +something that doesn't want to be found in space is like looking for a +missing germ in the Atlantic. + +He had the coordinates of the beacon he had chosen for his appointment +point and the robot pilot took him to that area with automatic +precision. But once there he had to cruise manually back and forth +three times through the perpendicular plane of Earth's equator before +picking up the radar pip of the buoy, which was set to broadcast its +presence by a circular sweep of radar pulses on a flat plane +corresponding to the Earth equatorial average. + +He found it no later than expected, which was over an hour early, on +the principle that he who arrives first finds no ambush. + +He left Pierce with certain instructions and floated from the ship to +the familiar globe that spun so placidly on the anchoring rod that +attached it to the controlling buoy. The buoy was powered strongly +enough to have controlled the orbits of fifty such globes without +strain. Buoys of that type were just beginning to be popular in the +Belt. + +Once inside he opened his faceplate, looking around with the same +pleasure he always felt on his visits here. It was like being back at +the Belt for a time. After the raw harshness of the moon and the +artificial luxuries of its cities, after the agoraphobic vastness of +Earth's giant surface, to be within this little close-knit familiar +world was soothing and relaxing. It was a green glade of leaves and +branches, greenness underfoot and overhead, a brown metal cliff with +vines and a door to his left, a larger brown metal cliff like the +round head of a barrel with doors in it to his right, and a circular +silver door in the center. Behind the small right hand cliff was the +small amount of regulating machinery required, behind the doors of the +larger cliff was a small kitchen, and convertible study-bedrooms. +Behind the silver door was a corridor leading to the airlock and +space. It was forty feet from cliff to cliff, and from the growing +greenery underfoot to the growing greenery overhead, as spacious as a +wide glade in the woods of Earth. + +He picked his way among the vines and shrubs to a carpetlike patch of +green moss and sat down comfortably to wait. Pierce had drawn the ship +off beyond detector range by now, and it would seem to any ship +approaching that he had not yet arrived. + +It was peaceful there, no breeze stirred the leaves. Twenty feet +above, fixed in the air on clear spokes of lucite, the crystal globe +that was the sun for this small world gave forth its warming flood of +light, sunlight borrowed from the sunlight outside and led in on the +lucite spokes. + +He had an interest in its manufacture, and had anchored his globe here +as a commercial sample of a spaceglobe for the viewing of likely +settlers. It was slightly better and more compact, since it was a +newer model, contained in an ovoid hull that was only forty-six by +sixty-six feet, but in essence it was like any of the farms and homes +of the asteroid belt, and there was nothing like it on any planet in +the universe. + + +VII + +Behind the silver door a bell rang suddenly. A spaceship was +approaching. + +It was still early. They would see the globe alone and assume that +Bryce had not yet arrived. The spaceship itself might be armed +illegally, but those within would not blast the globe without checking +its interior. Bryce glanced up at the silver door in the cliff and +arranged his position so as to be lounging on one elbow, with his gun +hand lying relaxed under a thin curtain of leaves. The magnomatic was +pointing up towards the corridor door. + +There were a few tall bushes between the base of the cliff and +himself, but the silver central door was five feet up a flight of +steps and in clear view. + +Four flights of steps radiated away from the circular door to the +hull, like spokes from an axle, all of them leading "down" to the +inside surface of the globe. As he waited he heard the faint clang of +magnetic soles hitting the metal of the airlock, and then the door +chimes that announced that the airlock was being used. Someone was +coming in. + +He could follow their actions in his mind, timing them. Now they would +be floating in the vestibule, facing a circular wall with a door, the +wall spinning silently and rapidly, and the door in its center turning +slowly end over end. The door marked the axis of rotation. There was a +turning bar with handles running through the center of the airlock. +They would float up to that and grip it to pick up spin, until the +vestibule seemed to be rotating around them and only the circular wall +and the central door seemed to be steady. Beyond it would be the +corridor, and then the silver door. + +The door in the cliff dilated silently. Two spacesuited men stood in +it. + +It was incredible that he had let them come in without seeing the door +open. In the first split second he saw that neither of them was +Orillo. In the second instant he saw that no weapons were visible, but +that one stood slightly behind the other and his right arm was hidden. + +They had happened to come to the entrance at an angle to his +orientation, almost at right angles, and they would be confused for a +moment, before they identified his shape, for to their orientation if +they used Earth-thought for it, he would seem to be leaning head +downward on an almost vertical slope. He took advantage of the lag to +move his gun under its curtain of leaves and get the sights lined on +them. + +They swung their eyes around the circle and saw him. "Mister Carter?" +asked the foremost one. Their faceplates were still closed, and their +voices slightly distorted by transmission through the helmet speaker, +but he could hear a note of surprise. As the first one spoke the +second one moved his hidden arm slightly, as if he were holding +something. + +Bryce did not tighten his finger on the trigger. These could be mere +innocent sight-seers. The position of his head, almost upside down +relative to theirs, was probably confusing them, though almost +certainly they had studied trimensional photographs of him. At any +rate they probably were aware that they were standing like targets in +the corridor doorway and would be in no mood to postpone action. + +"Take off your helmets, gentlemen, make yourselves at home." It was a +partial admission that he was the man they wanted, but not certain +enough for a decision. He saw the shoulder-twitch that meant that the +second one's hidden hand jerked in a moment of uncertainty, and he +thought he saw something glitter under the first one's arm--the old +trick of shooting from under a friend's screening arm.... + +"Mr. Bryce Carter?" the foremost one was asking again. + +Bryce smiled. "No, Pierce," he said. He had turned on the two-way +speaker and tuned it to the ship as he came in. + +Immediately the voice came in the corridor behind them. "Stand still. +You're covered." + +There was no chance that anyone could genuinely be behind them, but +the rear one whirled and snapped a startled shot into the darkened +corridor, and the other leaped sidewise down from the doorway, drawing +his gun with blurred speed, and leveling on Bryce as his feet left +contact with the sill. He was falling slowly, almost floating, and it +should have been an easy shot, except for something he had obviously +forgotten, or he never would have leaped. + +Bryce disregarded him as a danger, and threw three shots at the other, +who still stood startled and off balance in the corridor, firing three +with his inexperienced right hand to make sure of placing even one. +The figure dropped out of sight in the corridor. + + * * * * * + +In the flick of time that Bryce's eyes had been away from the falling +one, the path of the man's leap had begun to curve strangely, until +now he seemed to be floating in a curve, flying sidewise and upward, +faster and faster as he approached the hull. The rule of conservation +of momentum was having its way. To the man's dizzied eyes, as he tried +to keep Bryce within his sights long enough to fire, it must have +seemed that the ground began inexplicably to turn and slide by, that +suddenly the whole shell was turning around him like a big wheel, +carrying his target up the wall and over his head. + +He was almost to the sliding ground when a bush caught at his feet and +yanked them from under him with a crackling of branches, and the +bottom tread of a flight of stairs swung at his head like a gigantic +club. Among the sudden splintering of branches and snapping of vines +was a crunching thud which sounded final. + +To anyone within a globe, it did not ordinarily appear to be spinning, +the only sign it was, was the comfortable pseudo-gravity for anyone +standing on hull level. But to those who approached the ground from +the lighter G corridor, the stairs were necessary--stairs whose treads +were oddly dipped in the middle in a shallow U. By bracing against one +side of the U coming down, and on the other going up, one invisibly +picked up enough speed to match the speed of the ground level. Jumping +was the equivalent of jumping out of a moving car at forty feet a +second, the sixteen feet a second, half of the corridor plus an extra +thirty feet a second spin, the side slip speed of an eighteen foot +drop where it had looked like five. + +It was probably these added extra distances in the air, Bryce decided, +that sometimes made the bird flights look so bewilderingly variable in +speed and direction. He had not thought before how difficult it would +be to plot a straight course from one side of the globe to the other. + +He waited for a sign of motion, his magnomatic ready, looking up at +the gunman lying overhead, forty feet away on the other side of the +globe. The limp figure was unmoving, it looked badly tangled in vines, +and its gun was gone. There was no need to shoot, but he wondered +suddenly, if he had, what kind of a curve would the bullet have +followed? + +There was no sound from the other, but Bryce hesitated to climb the +stairs and put his head above floor level of the corridor. A voice +might give the other direction for a snap shot if that was what he was +waiting for. Bryce chanced speaking. + +"I've got this one, Pierce. How's the other?" + +The televiewer in the entrance hall replied, "Lying on his back with +his gun five feet away. You all right?" + +"Yes." Bryce walked around the circumference of the globe and searched +in the vines for the missing weapon of number one. The body in the +spacesuit nearby was quite definitely a corpse. He saw the gun +glittering a little further on and picked it up, wiping off leaf pulp +on a clean patch of moss. It was a heavy duty police pacifier, a +distance stunner, adjusted to a narrow beam. + +He climbed to the corridor and collected the other weapon. It was a +police pacifier too. They had not meant direct murder then, but only +to stun him and deliver him to Orillo, C. O. D. + +"How are you doing with their ship?" Bryce asked, "Is it armed?" +Armament for spaceships was illegal, and careful official inspection +made it rare. + +"I didn't wait to see," Pierce's voice came apologetically after a +pause in which some background noise sounding like a crash came over +the televiewer speaker. "It started swinging around when I came in +sight, so I just rammed it with that pretty ornamental nose spike. I'm +backing off now with the forward braking jets." + +"Then whoever's inside is probably either spacefrozen or cooked. +Jockey that ship around on the spike and give her a four minute shove +toward Earth, then push that button that collapses the ornamental +vanes on the spike and let it pull loose when you start braking. I +don't want any ship hulks floating around here." + +"Aye-aye, Cap." + +"Go slow on those braking jets when you pull loose. The back wash +could touch your hull." + +Pierce returned and came in to help Bryce drag the corpses through the +airlock and into space. + +They braced against the silver curve of the floating spaceship and +gave the body a combined strong shove towards Earth. Spinning slowly +end over end it dwindled into a dark speck against the glowing orb of +Earth, destined to be a meteorite and make a small bright streak in +the Earth sky several days later. + + _When the tubes conk out, the fuel runs down, + The cold creeps in to where I lie._ + +Pierce was reciting as they went back into the globe for the second +corpse. + + _I'll take the meteor's trail--go home to Earth + And make a Viking's funeral in the sky._ + +"This is too easy," Bryce complained as they watched the second corpse +fade from sight. "The trouble is, in space all corpses are delicti. +It's an incentive. Launch your enemies." + +"Gaucho country did all right under that system," Pierce said +somberly, "and so did the American frontier." He floated motionless, a +spacesuited figure turned toward the gray-green misted globe of Earth +that shone against the black star-sprinkled sky as if he could have +reached out and touched it. The sun caught the planet on its day +hemisphere and reflected brilliantly from a shadowy blue glaze of +water that was the Mediterranean, turning half of it to white fire. + +Bryce's earphones picked up Pierce's voice again. "Frontier-born +nations always look back and say that the first years were the best." + +The words caught at something Bryce had felt before. He looked at +Earth hanging splendidly in space. It was beautiful and he was fond of +it, but--He said, "I don't think we'll ever go back." Nor would +mankind itself. Never again--through all conquests from this point in +time--would mankind go back down into the mesh of gravity to be a thin +film over the surface of a planet. + +"Give old Earth a smile, Bryce, we've hatched." + +For a moment longer Bryce hung, watching Earth turning below. The +management of UT was down there. He'd be damned if he'd let them get +away with thinking they could tell him what to do, or tell the Belt +where a line should be extended and a colony planted. The belt was his +country, not theirs. Space belonged to the people who lived in it. + +"No taxation without representation," Pierce said irrelevantly, as if +he had been reading Bryce's thoughts. They jetted back to the ship and +into the spacelock. + +"Frontier country--" Bryce said as he stepped into the cubical of the +revolving door. Gently tightening elastic bands drew him into position +within the man-shaped mold. "What's a frontier on your terms, Roy?" +When he was in place the other half of the rubbery, air-excluding mold +closed on him and the airtight cylinder rotated, delivering him into +the interior of the ship. He pushed the button impatiently to have it +revolve back for Pierce, but it remained obstinately open, its servo +refusing to close on a mold full of air and rotate air back for +release into space. + +Bryce remembered then. This was something he didn't have to bother +with when he flew alone, for when going in or out he was always in the +door when it rotated; it never turned empty. Beside the door on a hook +hung an inflated pressure suit, complete with gloves, boots, and +helmet. Except for the absence of any sign of a head or face inside +the dark translucence of the helmet it looked like a full-sized man. +Bryce reached it down and placed it in the mold, and watched grinning +as the mold closed and the door rotated, delivering the man-form to an +equivalent hook in the spacelock. The doll was known by all spacemen +as Hector Dimwitty, and every ship had one or two. There were a +thousand yarns and jokes circulating about the adventures of the +Hectors, most of them lewd, and a few of them true. + +Pierce's answer was in his earphones, "A frontier is where people go +when they are young, broke, or have the cops after them." + +"Right. Suppose I stake the broke, and loan them transport, and offer +the fugitives unregistered safety to receive mail and to buy +supplies?" + +"You do that?" Pierce stepped out of the door and they took off their +helmets. + +"Yes, when I am my own man, not working for UT." + +"If you do that, you bring in ten times as many of the broke who +wanted to settle there, and--" Pierce took a long jump in +understanding, saying softly, "They're dependent on you. Handcuffed to +you and praying for your health and prosperity as long as you hold +their loans and secrets, for with your death or bankruptcy, another +man might come to your books to read the records of your loans, and +demand payment, and give the secrets to the police or keep them for +his blackmail. But to do it is to take a risk of murder or arrest, and +a high cost in hard work and money. Why do you want to do this? What +payment do you take?" + +"They pay by being my men, grateful and ready to back me up when I +want help later. They don't have to be grateful, for they know I can +call any loan if the owner crosses me, and I've built a reputation for +an occasional fit of irrational temper that is threat enough for +anyone to avoid crossing me, without feeling that I have wanted to +threaten or force them. As for the fugitives they pay enough by +wanting the Belt to be organized as a nation independent of Earth, so +that the hand of the law can't stretch out and drag them back, and +they can become wealthy in open business, in the million chances for +wealth that lie around them in the Belt. They don't know that they +want this yet, but they will see it when it is told to them. I can't +do any of this now--it's suspended for as long as I am part of UT and +have to drag the dead weight of ten Earth-tied conservatives with me +in every decision." + + +VIII + +He stopped to set in the coordinates of the Moon for the robot pilot, +but he found himself still wanting to talk. "Man has reached space--do +you think he'll ever go back to the ground? In space he has gravity +only when he wants it, and any weight of gravity he likes, depending +on how fast he spins his house. And no gravity when he wants that. You +see what that means to engineers in the advantage of building things? +No weight in transportation, no weight in travel, limitless speed and +almost no cost as long as he stays away from planet pulls. His house +is in the sky, and when he steps out of it he can fly like a bird. And +food. To grow food there is sunlight Earth never dreamed of. For heat +and power there is sunlight to focus. Space is flooded with heat, +irradiated with power-- + +"It's not child's play taming it, and those on the ground don't see it +yet. But the next step of mankind is out into space, and it's never +coming back." + +Pierce, sitting in one of the shock tank armchairs, asked, "What part +do you have in this?" + +Bryce looked at him with a feeling almost of surprise, as if he had +been called back from a long distance. "Me?" he laughed, a little awed +by the immensity of the goal, and the ease of it.... "First President +of the Belt and political boss for life. That's enough." + +Enough to hold the solar system in the palm of his hand, if he chose. +He who rules space, rules the planets. It was the first time he had +ever mentioned his goal to anyone. + +Roy Pierce asked, "What do I do about this 'friend' of yours who lays +traps?" + +The last attack had settled the question of who was behind the other +attacks, and who had told Beldman, but Orillo would still be a useful +pawn. All that was necessary was to evade his attempts at murder for a +month or so until partnership tied them too close for murder. + +Bryce explained some of that to Pierce, setting up a chess board to +pass away the time until they arrived back at Moonbase City. + +"What's my next assignment?" Pierce asked, when they were several +moves into the game. + +Bryce recalled a danger he had made no move to guard against. "The +Board hired a psychologist, a mind hunter, to find out who's doing the +undermining. He's one of the Manoba group. Remember the name, look it +up and find out what their methods are, how to recognize them, and +report back what to do about it." + +"I'll take care of him," Roy Pierce said absently, moving his knight +to threaten Bryce's bishop. + +"No unnecessary trouble. Remember I have to keep my name clean." Bryce +moved a pawn one step to cover the bishop and leave room for his other +bishop to menace the knight. + +"I'll be careful. There'll be no publicity. He won't get hurt," +Pierce said, moving the knight into Bryce's second line where it +threatened the king and a cornered castle. "Check." And he added, as +if apologizing for having delayed his move, "I don't like to move +until I'm sure what's going on." + +The remark didn't seem to be suited to the game, as if he had referred +to something else. + + * * * * * + +It was during dinner on the Moon that he and Pierce loosened up for +the first time since the ambush. Pierce had been comparatively silent +since the chess game on the trip back and Bryce too, whether in +sympathy with him or in a naturally parallel mood, had little to say. +But now the tension had diffused and, with the stimulus of aromatic +food, they climbed out of their depression of emotional solemnity. + +The decorations of the dining room were lush. While they ate, the +materialism of their lives was reinforced. From silvered-and-tapestried +wall to wall there was life here, low-keyed with excitement in the blend +of subdued talk and the shifting artistry of lights and music. Their table +was almost in the center of the islands of tables and potted trees, and +around them were the diners, their voices washing up at them both, +inviting them with gentle tugs to surrender their resistance, beckoning +them into the sea of simple pleasures. + +"We owe ourselves some fun, Bryce." + +At Pierce's words, Bryce sharpened his eyes on the face across the +table. There was a touch of seriousness in those words; more like a +statement than a suggestion. + +Pierce smiled wryly and took a vial out of his pocket and poured it +into his drink. He spun the empty bottle between thumb and fingers. + +"We owe ourselves some fun," Pierce repeated. "We've nothing on the +fire tonight, nothing to do that's crucial. It's a good night to +experiment." + +The warm voice waves lapping at Bryce's mind suddenly receded and left +a chill. With instinctive wariness he thought of hypnotics and +single-shot addictors. + +Pierce couldn't have missed the emotionless freeze on the other's +face. Still twirling the vial casually, he began to explain. It was a +new drug, he said, found being used by a tribe in Central Africa. +"I've heard of it for some time and what you mentioned a little while +back reminded me of it." + +Bryce caught the hidden reference. Central Africa--and the Manoba +group. So Pierce had not dismissed the mind hunter from his thoughts +as a problem to be easily dealt with. + +"It's still in the testing stage," Pierce added. "But some of it is +circulating among medical students. The tests have interesting +effects. And, as I say, tonight's a good night to experiment, it's +called B'nyab i'io." + +The chill in Bryce's head and spine was thawing out. "You're not +conning me?" He said it with a grin, but there was an edge to the +question which demanded an answer. + +Pierce gave it to him, for a brief moment deadly serious. "You +couldn't get addicted if you swam in it." + +Bryce believed him. He stared at the glass. "What does it do to the +I.Q.? We've got to collect some information here and there this +evening. I want to be able to read and talk." He smiled crookedly. "No +worse than usual, that is." + +"Either raises the I.Q. or leaves it alone." + +"What's the effect?" + +"It affects different people different ways. After hearing the reports +I'd like to see how it hits us." Pierce pushed it towards him, +grinning. "Leave half for me." + +Bryce's wary thoughts touched poison and immunity and murder, but +inwardly he began to scoff at his own habits of suspicion. However, +before he could reach for the glass, Pierce had given a short snort as +though in recognition of his presumptuousness and drank his own share +first. + +Then Bryce raised the cold glass to his lips. + +As he put it down he could feel the change beginning to spread through +his blood, warming and relaxing, bringing closer the memories of +pleasure and good times. The restaurant was now completely seductive, +with the surf of voices pleasant in his ears, calling to him to join +the world and its offers of uncomplicated pleasures. He felt himself +blending with the ethereal background mixture of light and sound. + +"I like this," he decided. + +"We should take notes." Pierce was smiling as he stuffed the empty +vial back in his pocket. + + * * * * * + +The next day Bryce looked back on that evening with pleasure. Everyone +had been remarkably pleasant, friendly and considerate, and Pierce had +always had the right friendly word and gesture to reward them, +speaking for Bryce, knowing his way around the cities of the Moon to +the right places for the information they sought, always speaking for +Bryce Carter, his employer, getting him the things he wanted, giving +the orders he wanted to give before Bryce had even fully realized that +he wanted them. Bryce had needed to say nothing the whole time except +"Right. That's it," and everything went as he wanted it. + +"A perfect left hand man," he smiled, stretching, and turned the +polarization dial to let in the sunlight. + +The telephone rang. He picked it up and the desk clerk said in a +deferentially hushed voice, "Eight o'clock, Mister Carter." + +For some reason the hushed voice struck him as funny. "Thanks, I'm +up." He hung up and stretched again. It was soothing to have someone +solicitous that he arose on time, if only a hotel. The hotel had given +him a lot of good service. He felt suddenly grateful for all the +pleasures and luxuries and small services they surrounded him with. It +was a good place. He was feeling good that morning. Maybe because the +sun was so bright.... + +He liked the look of the people passing in the lobby as Pierce joined +him, and he liked the look of the passengers in the tube trains on the +way to the office. They all looked more friendly. And as he pushed +through the second glass door into his offices he liked the clean +shine of the glass and the rich blended colors and soft rugs and gray +textured desks and the soft efficient hum of work in progress. + +Bryce usually passed Kesby's office with a businesslike nod, but +Pierce smiled in, stopping for an instant with Bryce. "Good morning, +Kesby. We're glad to see you." It was true enough and expressed what +he felt. + +Bryce exchanged a grin with Kesby at the boy's insolence and then went +on into his office. + +It was a good day. + +It was a good day for what he had to do. + +In the luxury of his inner office he sank into the deepest, softest +chair, letting his cousin-from-Montehedo sort the mail, agreeing with +the boy's suggestions for action or sometimes issuing his own +instructions, keeping only half his mind on the routine day's +business, relying on Pierce, and concentrating the other half on the +deed to be done. The plan was set in his mind but he had changes to +make. + +He was barely conscious of the time slipping by as he lay, rarely +moving, in his chair, while Pierce worked at top speed. + +By one o'clock the deck was cleared for action. + +Bryce stood up, stretched, and checked his watch again. It was 1304 +hours. A telephone call was scheduled in about another hour, and five +more successively about a half hour apart. + +"Order us some lunch, Pierce, before I lift the drawbridge." + +The food came in as he was instructing his staff to leave them +undisturbed for the rest of the afternoon. + +By the time they had finished eating, their isolation was complete. +The office was a command post now, with only the slender, unattended +telephone wires connecting them with the outside worlds. + +Bryce moved over behind his desk. He drew the telephone toward him and +dialed a number. Somewhere, in the locked safe, the phone rang. + +From the case he took a toy dial phone. Pierce's eyes were on it, his +eyebrows lifted quizzically, but Bryce offered no explanation. The boy +was due for a series of surprises. And when it was over, he would know +everything without any explanations, and too late to interfere. + +"Hi Al," Bryce said to the recorded "Yeah?" at the other end. He +dialed a number on the toy dial, the one receiver against the other's +back. After the usual ritual, Bryce said, "Hello George, how's +everything going?" + +This is it, Bryce thought. This was the first part of the final blow +to UT. And the only instrument he needed in his delightfully simple +method was a telephone. Originally he had planned six brief warning +calls to the six key numbers of the ground organization. He would tell +them to refuse to take anything from the hands of the UT branch, and +break contact with them immediately after accepting cash for +miscellaneous items. That would set the stage. + +The police trap would close on all members of the UT branch of the +organization while they were encumbered with a maximum of +incriminating objects to dispose of in too little time. Then would +come his anonymous tip to the police. He'd inform them that certain +employees of UT in a few listed cities would be found to be smuggling +in large quantities of drugs. The thing would be so simple. And the +whole works would blow up with the efficiency of the calculated +explosion of nuclear reaction. + +That had been his original plan. + +But things would be different now. The morning in the easy chair had +changed his approach. The newer, more elaborate program, still +remarkably simple, would bring down the whole structure within UT +without the help of the police, but by himself alone, planning it, +initiating it, executing it with no one's help. Not even Pierce's. + +He heard himself saying: + +"This is 'Hello George.' Listen to me and don't interrupt. + +"Somebody has talked. I've been betrayed myself. Get that? Hello +George is washed up. Right now the cops are tapping this line. It +doesn't make any difference to me, now. But it does to you. This is an +open warning from Hello George to you. Spread the word. I'll keep +making calls until they break in on me and cut this line. + +"Meanwhile, spread the word. Break connections with me and the whole +organization. Get out of range before the trap closes. But pass on +this warning first. + +"I'll hold out against questioning a short time. The police will get +me eventually, of course. And when they do they'll pump me dry. +They'll get names and addresses. The whole works will get grabbed, +unless you move fast. Spread the word." + +Bryce paused and winked at Pierce who was standing at his elbow, "Any +questions? Yes, I'm sure. Of course I'm sure. Any other questions? +Good luck, Okay." + +He hung up. + +As Caesar once said, the dice were rolling. + +Pierce, beside him through it all, simply stood there, his eyes wide +and his face sharp with curiosity and incredulity, his body twitching +now and then from the infection of the excitement which rippled over +the room. That excitement had been there, though Bryce had not +permitted himself to indulge in it in any visible way. He had showed +Pierce a new facet to his operations, one which Pierce could not +anticipate immediately, one in which only he, Bryce, could make the +snap decisions and evaluate the immediate responses demanded of him. + +That was with the first call. + + * * * * * + +With the second one Pierce began to contribute, rising to the occasion +as he had so often and quickly done in the past. He began pacing up +and down between calls, smoking furiously and laughing under his +breath. + +"Tell 'em the police are breaking down the door," he suggested during +the third call. "Say you're hypnoed to hold out against questioning +five days at the most, two hours more likely." + +His suggestions were a howl. Bryce repeated them into the phone with +counterfeit desperation and was rewarded by the sounds of panic at the +other end. He and Pierce chortled over the frantic queries and +exclamations from the victim. The whole thing, succinct and pointed +and with the dramatic power of simplicity, was one super practical +joke which would set the entire solar system scurrying around for the +next few weeks. + +The ramifications would be endless. Persons would vanish abruptly and +take up new names and identities in the obscure countries, others +would draw out their heavy savings and take the first rocket out from +Earth. There would be a new influx of refugees to the Belt, new +settlers to be honest farmers and factory workers and repair men. + +Yes, the situation was dramatic. + +The day was a good day. + +But as Bryce hung up on the last call, a depressing sense of calamity, +unsettlingly anti-climatic, began to press down on him. Pierce was +talking about plans for the next week with an enthusiasm which should +have been completely contagious. + +But there was something wrong. There was something wrong. + +What was it? + +Bryce felt Pierce's enthusiasm catch at him and start to sweep him +away. He savored the pleased glow produced by the shattering changes +he had managed to cram into one day. With six telephone calls he had +broken the drug ring completely and forever, broken it so completely +that no member of it would ever have dealings with any member of it +again. All of them were out of business, fleeing with the imaginary +hounds of the law baying at their heels. + +He smiled at the thought. + +And then his smile faded for some strange reason and he ceased +listening to Pierce for a moment, looked away and ceased listening, +for hearing Pierce just then distracted oddly from the clarity of his +thinking. He wanted to review what he had just done. + +What was wrong? + +What? + +He struggled with a mounting confusion, the desk top and telephones +blurring as he tried to concentrate with desperate effort. + +Unexpectedly the question sprang into focus. It was as if the room +turned inside out, the day turned upside down. + +He had smashed himself--not UT! + +Why? + +Why had he made those calls--changed his plans--and made those calls? + +With the most perfect and terrible clarity he saw the results of what +he had done. The organization destroyed. The contacts he had made +fifteen years ago as an anonymous young dock hand, contacts that as +Bryce Carter he could never make again--vanishing--merging with the +great mass of the public--becoming gray unknown figures. The building +of years melting like a sugar castle melts into the tide--the +invisible army that had obeyed his sourceless voice without being able +to blackmail or rebel, the perfectly balanced tool in his hands that +could be used for the bribing of venal politicians, with a limitless +fund for the bribery, the growing secret control of the most venal of +the political machines of Earth, that by the time he needed it it +would have been an irresistible weapon in his hand for the single +swift political blow that would rip the Belt from Earth control, and +give it a seat on the Assembly of the Federated Nations, and mastery +of the solar system-- + +But as he sat there the organization dissolved. + +He grasped the phone, but there was nobody to call now, no one would +answer. He could never reach them again. + +This was sanity now, but what had it been before when he was +cheerfully destroying his future? It seemed to him that there were two +halves to his brain, each wanting different things. For a moment the +one that had controlled the day was gone, and he was sane again, but +how long would that moment last? What sign had there been when it took +control? Would he know it when it came again? + +He remembered that in the tube train that morning he and Pierce had +had a half joking argument about the best short-and-merry life. One of +the happy ones on the list had been the INC agent, because they spent +so much of their lives working into smuggling gangs that they had all +the pleasures and profits of being a crook and an honest man too. Was +that where he had slipped his cog? + +Looking back on the things he had done that day he saw that much of it +had fitted an abstract pattern of justice, as if he had been thinking +of himself as an INC man. Or as if-- + +He thought of the things he had seen in his childhood that they had +called zombies, and jeered at and tormented without fear of any +retaliation or vengeance from their gray-faced victims. Imprisoned +men--they looked normal--but they had been mentally imprisoned. +Law-zombies, memorizing and following laws and being honest with a +simple and terrifying literalness. + +He had not known that he had any capacity for terror. + +Bryce Carter. He had his name, his identity and his memory, and they +were his own. Sometimes he had had nothing else, only the pride and +strength of knowing his identity, that it was his and stronger than +others, just as his hands were stronger, a thing they couldn't take +from him. + +_Could they?_ There was a nightmare he had had more than once, that he +remembered suddenly for the first time, with all its atmosphere of +childish strangeness. The cop psychos were after him. He was trapped +in a big room with lights and they had his head open and were chasing +him around inside his head somehow, trying to catch him, and kill him, +the him that lived in his mind. + +Would he know if it was gone? + +The black sharp-edged shadows of the crater walls were drawing across +the landing plain outside, bringing to a close the two weeks of +daylight, and the reflected sunlight was dimming in the room. He could +hear the rumble of a heavy ship of a cargo fleet lowering in to a +landing. + +His assistant was sitting quietly on the edge of the desk as he had +been for some time, motionlessly watching the thin plume of smoke that +rose from a cigarette in his hand. He was as still as if he were +listening for some subtle sound far away. Rocket jets flashed an +orange glow through the venetian blinds and fell in stripes of orange +light across the dark young face. The brief rumble of a rocket +take-off came, transmitted through the ground and the building. Smoke +curling up from the cigarette was the only motion. + +"Roy, is Pierce your real name?" + +The light flashed and faded in bars of orange across the young face he +had thought was like his own, the boy he had thought had come from Pop +Yak. The quick deep rumble of sound came and faded in the walls around +them. A fleeting smile touched the face, and the dark eyes rested on +his for a moment as Roy Pierce gave the information casually as if it +were any other information, answering the question that had been +meant. "It is my mother's name. We always take our mother's names. I +am a Manoba--a Manoba of Jaracho." + + +IX + +Looking into Bryce's face he slid to his feet slowly, ground out the +stub of his cigarette and stood before the desk. + +Bryce took out his gun and held it where Pierce could see it. "Are +Manobas ever shot?" It was a heavy little gun, his maggy, its barrel +sleek and rounded, the heavy metal warm from being worn close to the +skin. + +"Sometimes. It's a natural enough reaction." + +It was a spaceworthy gun with adjustable velocity for driving through +padded suits and pressure suits. The velocity was set high, but it +would be inartistic to blow a large hole through a psychotherapist. +Bryce turned the dial down slowly, watching him. + +"Do the professional ethics of privacy and non-publicity cover this +kind of situation?" + +Pierce was smiling slightly with a touch of bitter humor. "It's +undiplomatic to tell you that, but yes, the contingency is covered. +There is nothing to connect myself with you as a case in any records, +nor anything to identify me as a member of the Manoba group contracted +by your company. The ethic of privacy is allowed to have no exceptions +for the family's record." + +A cool curiosity held him. "Tell me--when you saw that I was beginning +to think, why didn't you just needle me down for a short nap and +leave?" + +The smile remained. "I am supposed to control the shock of +realization, and make sure that it is assimilated without damage to +the subject." His dark expressionless eyes met Bryce's, and Bryce felt +the impact of them, and realized for the first time that there was the +same slight bitter off-hand smile on his own lips, and inwardly the +quiet ironical mood with the still clarity of a deep pool. His own +mood? He hefted the gun in his hand, feeling its weight and balance. +"You could have done that over the televiewer," he pointed out +dispassionately. "What is the average mortality, do you know?" + +"Not high. It is only inexperience that is dangerous. If one can get +through one's first three or four cases, it's safe enough." + +Looking back over the past days it was quite clear that Pierce had +control over his emotions. Any emotion Pierce chose him to feel he +would feel. It remained to be seen how much that could influence what +he was going to do. The dark-skinned young man stood before the desk +casually and answered questions with a slight restrained smile that +set the wry irony of both their minds. + +A man does what he wants. That is freedom, but what he wanted could be +controlled apparently. A man _is_ what he wants. But what he wanted +could be changed. How easy had it been to change him. Bryce tried +himself with a thought of the power and glory of rule, the reign and +mastery of space--a goal that had warmed his thoughts for many years. + +He didn't want it. + +There was a numbness where there should have been emotion, and all he +could feel for his loss was the resignation and the faint bitter humor +permitted him by Pierce's smile. Watching that smile he shifted the +heavy little gun in his hand, turning it over casually, feeling its +familiar weight and the texture of its surfaces. + +He spoke gently. "If you don't mind my asking, have you passed through +your first three cases yet?" + +"You are my first," said Roy Pierce, whom he had trusted. "I'm afraid +I was clumsy." + +"Oh--you did all right." Bryce shot him then, placing the bullet +carefully in the pit of his stomach where it would hurt. That was for +doing well. For justice. No man has the right to meddle in another +man's mind. + +Pierce had been starting to speak. He swayed back a half step with a +flicker of change crossing his face then stood steady and smiling +again. That brief grimace touched Bryce's nerves with a sensation that +was like the jangle of something heavy dropped inside a piano, a sound +he had heard once. But the numbness did not lift from his feelings. He +was still smiling. The third bullet would be between the eyes. + +The words were low and rapid but clear. + +Bryce did not listen. "This is for doing a good job," he said, +overriding the other voice with his own, and pulled the trigger again, +placing the slug slightly lower this time, in the belly, where if it +entangled in one of the spinal plexus it could hurt past belief. +Pierce swayed slightly. His face went to the clay-blue color that +comes to dark-skinned races when they pale. Bleeding inside somewhere, +and already dead unless he were given help, Bryce figured. + +For a moment Bryce saw something like effort in the dark unreadable +eyes. Then suddenly Pierce smiled, his young face disarmingly innocent +and merry. "Oh, come on, Bryce, it's not that serious. Be a good +sport. You don't want to--" + +Suddenly Bryce saw the situation as the sheerest humor, a sort of +lunatic farce for the laughter of some cosmic joker. He swung the +gunsights up towards the smiling face. Amusement bubbled in his blood +and he heard himself laugh--heard it with a grim secondary amusement. + +"The joke's on you," he said, and pulled the trigger, then laughed +again. The joke was on him. + +He had missed. He had missed at a distance of three feet. Yet his hand +was rock-steady. Pierce's control had him. His laughter stopped as the +humor in Pierce's attitude faded down again to the small wry smile +that had been there from the beginning. + +Bryce had not lost. He had only to wait a little and he had won. +Unless Pierce could use his control to force him to call help. He set +himself to resist and not to listen. There was not long to go. The +expressionless dark eyes that held his were beginning to widen +slightly in an effort of sight that meant that a private darkness was +closing in on the psychotherapist. The rumble of distant rockets +seemed louder, covering his fading voice. "It's your choice, Bryce. I +give it to you. You won't want this later--Bryce--but don't--hunger to +undo. It is payment enough for all--times like this--that you +change--and do not--want--them any--again--" Pierce pulled in a +strangling breath, swaying more visibly. "Gun," he whispered, reaching +out in Bryce's direction, his eyes going sightless. + +Bryce handed him the magnomatic, and watched as Pierce fumbled his +hands over it, putting his prints on it blindly, his knees bending. + +When he fell, Bryce picked up the phone and called Emergency. The +emergency squad would be cruising around in the halls somewhere +nearby, looking for the source of the three radio notes that had told +them that a gun was fired. + + * * * * * + +"That was the last I saw of him," the young man stopped talking and +looked pleased with himself. + +Donahue drained his drink irritably and put it on the bar that had +been set up on the ceiling when the Gs went off. It clung +magnetically. "Make it the same, please." He turned to Roy Pierce, +floating beside him. "Stop needling me, man, finish the story. The way +you tell it, I don't know what you did, how you did it, or even +whether you died or not." + +"Oh, I died," said Roy Pierce. "But they revived me," he added. + +"Good! I'm glad to hear that!" said Donahue more cheerfully, wondering +suddenly just how extensively he was being kidded. "For a moment +there you had me worried. Now explain about this treatment." + +"It's called soul eating," explained the dark-skinned, straight-haired +boy, "I don't think you could do it." + +Donahue thought that information over carefully. "Maybe not. How's it +done?" + +"In the tribes of my people the soul is supposed to be an invisible +double who walks at your side, protecting you and speaking silently to +your mind. Its face is the face that looks out of mirrors and up from +pools at you, and the shadow that walks on the ground beside you. +Evildoers, after they had spoken to a Manoba, would say that their +reflections were gone. Our family was called The Eaters of Souls, and +all the tribes were afraid of us for nine hundred miles around." + +"So am I," said Donahue compactly. "As my Yiddish grandmother on my +mother's side would say, it sounds from werewolves." + +"I can explain it." + +"No magic?" + +"Look," said the youth tersely, "Do I want to get kicked out of the +FNMA? What if I had sat in a jungle circle loaded to the ears with +herbs and spells, with the drums of my cousins throbbing around me, +and learned the best and subtlest ways of my technique back in time +looking through the eyes of my great grandfather, or conversing with +his ghost. Do you think I would say so?" + +"No," Donahue admitted. He edged away a little. + +The youth spoke gloomily. "Rapport and intensified empathy is +something you learn by exposing yourself to mirrors. The technique is +published, known and accepted among psychologists, but most of them +just don't try. It backfires too easily, and it takes too high a level +of skill. It originated with my family." The youth spoke even more +gloomily. "What I do is obvious enough if I make it so. It's simply +prior mimicry. I watch the trend of what goes on in his thoughts, and +express approximately what he is feeling and thinking a little before +he does. So that presently, subconsciously he is depending on me to +tell him what he thinks and how he feels. + +"I was his mirror, his prior mirror. I am a clear, expressive +underplaying actor as an actor, and each shade of reaction is separate +and unmistakable. The subconscious is not rational, but it generalizes +from regularities that the conscious mind never has the subtlety to +notice. It saw me consistently representing its own internal +reactions, hour after hour in every situation more clearly than Bryce +ever saw himself express anything in a mirror, and more steadily than +he ever saw any mirror. The subconscious then associated the inside +emotion with the corresponding outside image for each one. I became +Bryce's subconscious self image. When he thinks of doing anything, the +image in the imagination that does it is not himself, it is me. This +can cause considerable mental confusion." + +"It should!" Donahue agreed fervently. + +"I put him in new places and situations where he was unsure and I was +sure, so that when I diverged from mirroring him, he gave me the lead +and mirrored me. One of us had to be the originator and the other the +reflection, but now it was reversed. He did not fight it +subconsciously because the results were pleasant. I kept the lead and +led him a mental dance through thoughts and reactions he had never had +before, in a personality pattern completely foreign to his own, one +that I wanted him to have. I hadn't been hired for that, but I had +time to pass before I could untangle that UT problem, and I wanted to +do it for him. The mirror link was complete the first day, but I'm +afraid the extra days made it indelible. He'll always be me in his +mind, and mirrors will never look right to him." + + * * * * * + +"It's so simple, it's obvious," said Donahue with disappointment. "It +doesn't sound like magic to me." + +The youth was thoughtful, frowning. "Sometimes it doesn't to me +either. I wonder if the ghost of my grandfather was telling me the +right--" + +"Forget the ghost of your grandfather," Donahue interrupted hastily. +On his few space trips he could never get used to this business of +floating eerily around in the air, and it seemed a poor time to talk +about ghosts. "What about Bryce Carter. What became of him? You know," +he said defiantly, "I like his plans for organizing the Belt and +breaking UT. And, come to think of it, if I had been there when you +were interfering with _that_, I think I would have shot you myself." + +"UT had only hired me to find the organizer of the smuggling ring and +persuade him to disband his organization in UT. I had done that. So +the third day, when I could walk, I left the hospital and went back to +Earth, and collected my fee for a job done. Many people had vanished +suddenly from their payrolls, and the crime statistics in some cities +had shown a startling lull. They knew I had done it, and so they paid +and were grateful." The dark youth shrugged. "I didn't feel I had to +tell them about Orillo. He tipped the police and started a rumor, and +there was evidence enough in the crime statistics of the months +before, when they were correlated with the distribution of branches of +Union Transport, though there was nothing to point at anyone in +particular except the ones who had disappeared." + +Donahue remembered. "Sure that's that investigation of transportation +monopolies that raised such a stink last year. I saw part of it in +Congress." + +Pierce handed him a travel folder. Gaudily illustrated, it advertised +the advantages of the C&O lines for space tourists. "Carter and +Orillo." + +Donahue looked up, puzzled, "But this is the next step in what he +planned. I thought you changed him." + +"Mahatma Gandhi would have followed out those plans," Pierce said with +a touch of grimness. "As you pointed out, they are attractive. But I +changed him. I won't give you personality dynamics, but if you want a +list of changes--He's married to Sheila Wesley, that's one change. And +instead of going home nights he roisters around in bars and +restaurants, talking to everybody, listening to everybody, liking them +all and enthusiastically making friends in carload lots. That's +another change. He doesn't look into mirrors because they make him +feel cross-eyed. That's because he unconsciously expects to see me in +the mirror. And he will organize the Belt and be president as he +planned. I won't stop him in that. The difference will be that he +won't want the power he'll get." Pierce said grimly, "A power-lusting +man can never be trusted with power: he goes megalomaniacal. Carter +was already halfway there. But he's safe from that now. He's going to +be given plenty of power, and see it only as responsibility, and not +want it. That's the only safe kind of man to have in a powerful +position." + +"That--" said Donahue with great earnestness, "--is like sending a +poor damned soul to Kismetic paradise as a eunuch. You psychologists +are all complete sadists," he said lifting his drink. "I suppose +you've put something in my drink?" + +"Absolutely nothing," Roy Pierce assured him, grinning. "Funny thing +was, when I got back to Earth that time, _I_ kept feeling cross-eyed +when I looked into a mirror. And my friends said I was not myself. If +I was not myself, I knew I must still be Bryce Carter. Things had +seemed different, and they had warned me that the technique sometimes +backfired when I was learning. So I called my uncle Mordand on the +televiewer--he's the head of the family, and he lives in an estate in +the jungle--and he--" + +Donahue was fascinated again. + +There was a different approach for each case, Pierce had found. It was +not ordinarily ethical to discuss any case history, but he knew with +great surety that Donahue could be trusted not to repeat what he was +being told. The only reason there wasn't something extra in his +current drink was because there had been something in the last drink. + +This was case five. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Man Who Staked the Stars, by Charles Dye + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO STAKED THE STARS *** + +***** This file should be named 31356.txt or 31356.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/3/5/31356/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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